Bombing Victims Get Libyan Compensation

Victims of a 1986 Berlin nightclub bombing have received the first instalment of a $35 million (€28.3 million) compensation payment from Libya, a lawyer told reporters. Libya, which has been blamed for the bombing that killed two US soldiers and injured more than 200 people, agreed to the payment on Sept. 3. Under the agreement, 168 non-US victims of the attack on Berlin's La Belle disco, will receive the money. A German court ruled in 2001 that Libya's secret service had plotted the bombing. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's charitable foundation was supposed to pay $15 million by Sept. 8, followed by another payment of the same amount by Dec. 1, with the remainder getting transferred by March 1, 2005. According to Reuters news agency, Libyan officials told German lawyers that bureaucratic hurdles and technical difficulties at the Libyan central bank were behind the delay. Payouts to US victims of the blast are the subject of separate legal action in the United States.