The centre-left opposition Democratic
Party (PD) on Tuesday filed a parliamentary question urging the
government to get to the bottom of the 1980 Ustica plane crash
that left 81 people dead after former Italian premier Giuliano
Amato said at the weekend that he believes a French missile
caused the disaster.
Amato said the Dc9 Bologna-Palermo flight operated by the
now-defunct Itavia airline that crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea
between the islands of Ponza and Ustica on June 27, 1980, was
hit in an attempt to assassinate late Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi.
He said Gaddafi "evaded the trap" because he was tipped off by
late Italian Socialist Party leader and ex-premier Bettino
Craxi.
After the comments caused a furore, Amato clarified that he did
not have any new evidence, saying that he had presented a
hypothesis that he considered highly credible in a bid to get
the people who did know to reveal the truth.
In its question to the government Tuesday, presented in both
houses of parliament, the PD asked "what necessary and urgent
initiatives does the Italian Government intend to assume at an
international level, also via formal requests, to finally ensure
the full establishment of the truth of the facts that occurred
to the DC9 Itavia in the skies above Ustica on June 27 1980".
The French foreign ministry said Saturday that Paris has already
given all the information it has in relation to the Ustica air
disaster but was ready to cooperate further if called on to do
so.
Bobo Craxi, Bettino Craxi's son, said his father did give
Gaddafi a warning, but it regarded the 1986 US bombing of Libya,
in which Gaddafi's months old adopted daughter was allegedly
killed in Tripoli.
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