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Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi attends the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, July 15, 2009. Photo/REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
ROME – Former Italian Prime Minister (PM) Giuliano Amato accused France and the United States (US) of being most likely responsible for the crash of a mysterious passenger plane off the coast of Sicily in June 1980.
According to him, the incident was the result of a plan to assassinate the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
“The most credible version is about the responsibility of the French Air Force with the involvement of America and those who participated in the air war in our skies on the night of June 27,” Amato said in an interview with the Italian newspaper la Repubblica on Saturday (2/9/2023 ).
He described the crash of Itavia Flight 870 on June 27, 1980, which killed all 81 passengers and crew on board.
“A plan had been launched to attack the plane Gaddafi was on,” Amato said, referring to reports of a dogfight that took place in the region between French and Libyan jets on the day the Italian passenger plane went down, and rumors Gaddafi was on board one of the Army’s MiG jets. Libyan Air.
“The plan was to simulate a NATO exercise involving multiple aircraft in which a single missile would be fired, in what was deemed to be an accident, at the plane carrying Gaddafi,” Amato said.
However, Gaddafi received a warning from Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, Amato’s former rival, and never boarded the jet, and a French missile allegedly intended for him instead hit the Itavia plane.
The Itavia McDonnell Douglas DC-9 passenger jet crashed in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy, between the islands of Ponza and Ustica en route from Bologna to Palermo.
In 2015, the Palermo Court of Appeal ruled that the crash was caused by a missile hitting the DC-9, and that the missile was fired by another plane that crossed the passenger plane’s route.