Italian ex-premier says French missile downed an airliner in 1980 by chance in bid to kill Gadhafi

ROME — A former Italian premier, in an interview revealed on Saturday, contended {that a} French air power missile by accident introduced down a passenger jet over the Mediterranean Sea in 1980 in a failed bid to assassinate Libya’s then chief Moammar Gadhafi.

Former two-time Premier Giuliano Amato appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to both refute or affirm his assertion about the reason for the crash on June 27, 1980, which killed all 81 individuals aboard the Italian home flight.

In an interview with Rome every day La Repubblica, Amato stated he’s satisfied that France hit the aircraft whereas concentrating on a Libyan army jet.

While acknowledging he has no laborious proof, Amato additionally contended that Italy tipped off Gadhafi, and so the Libyan, who was heading again to Tripoli from a gathering in Yugoslavia, didn’t board the Libyan army jet.

What brought about the crash is one in every of trendy Italy’s most enduring mysteries. Some say a bomb exploded aboard the Itavia jetliner on a flight from Bologna to Sicily, whereas others say examination of the wreckage, pulled up from the seafloor years later, point out it was hit by a missile.

Radar traces indicated a flurry of plane exercise in that a part of the skies when the aircraft went down.

“The most credible version is that of responsibility of the French air force, in complicity with the Americans and who participated in a war in the skies that evening of June 27,” Amato was quoted as saying.

NATO deliberate to “simulate an exercise, with many planes in action, during which a missile was supposed to be fired” with Gadhafi because the goal, Amato stated.

In the aftermath of the crash, French, U.S. and NATO officers denied any army exercise within the skies that night time.

According to Amato, a missile was allegedly fired by a French fighter jet that had taken off from an plane provider, presumably off Corsica’s southern coast.

Macron, 45, was a toddler when the Italian passenger jet went down within the sea close to the tiny Italian island of Ustica.

“I ask myself why a young president like Macron, while age-wise extraneous to the Ustica tragedy, wouldn’t want to remove the shame that weighs on France,” Amato advised La Repubblica. ”And he can take away it in solely two methods – both demonstrating that the this thesis is unfounded or, as soon as the (thesis’) basis is verified, by providing the deepest apologies to Italy and to the households of the victims within the title of his authorities.”

Amato, who’s 85, stated that in 2000, when he was premier, he wrote to the then presidents of the United States and France, Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac, respectively, to press them to make clear what occurred. But finally, these entreaties yielded “total silence,” Amato stated.

When queried by The Associated Press, Macron’s workplace stated Saturday it wouldn’t instantly touch upon Amato’s remarks.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni referred to as on Amato to say if he has concrete parts to again his assertions in order that her authorities may pursue any additional investigation.

Amato’s phrases “merit attention,” Meloni stated in a press release issued by her workplace, whereas noting that the previous premier had specified that his assertions are “fruit of personal deductions.”

Assertions of French involvement aren’t new. In a 2008 tv interview, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who was serving as premier when the crash occurred, blamed it on a French missile whose goal had been a Libyan army jet and stated he realized that Italy’s secret providers army department had tipped off Gadhafi.

Gadhafi was killed in Libya’s civil warfare in 2011.