Rome,
The accusation had been circulating for years, but as a rumor. This time, it is a former Italian Prime Minister (1992-1993 then 2000-2001) who makes the accusation in an interview with La Repubblica. According to the Democrat Giuliano Amato, 85, it was France which, during a plan organized by the NATO countries to get rid of Gaddafi (a plan which would have gone wrong), would have shot down a DC-9 of the company Air Itavia. The plane which was to connect Bologna-Palermo crashed in the Tyrrhenian Sea, near the island of Ustica, north of Sicily, on June 27, 1980. The crash killed 81 people.
“The most credible version is that of the responsibility of the French Air Force, with the complicity of the Americans and those who participated in the air war in our sky on the evening of June 27, accuses Amato in the ‘interview. The plan was to strip Gaddafi, by flying him in a Mig (Soviet aircraft manufacturer, Editor’s note) of his air force. A plan, on paper very complex, which was to “simulate a NATO exercise, with many planes in action, during which a missile was to be fired at the Libyan leader: the exercise was a staged should make it possible to pass the attack for an “involuntary accident”, continues the politician without advancing concrete proof of his accusations. But things would have gone wrong: “Gaddafi was warned of the danger and did not board his plane. And the missile launched against the Libyan Mig ended up hitting Itavia’s DC9, which sank with eighty-one innocent people inside. Paris and Washington have always denied any involvement of their devices in the drama. “On this drama, France has provided all the elements in its possession each time it has been requested”, indicates the Quai d’Orsay to Rai. The ministry adds that each piece of information was provided “in particular within the framework of the investigations carried out by the Italian justice”. “We obviously remain available to work with Italy if they ask us to.”
Also in his interview with La Repubblica, Amato explains that once under-secretary to the presidency of the council, six years after the events, he would have received visits from generals who tried to convince him of the thesis of the explosion of a bomb inside the plane. A thesis which, according to him, came to replace that of the structural defect of the plane. “I understood that there was a truth that had to be hidden. And our Air Force was ready to defend the lie.” Bettino Craxi, then chairman of the council and who died in 2000, would have expressly asked him not to “annoy the soldiers”.
A lengthy judicial investigation culminated in a criminal trial against several senior Italian military officials, suspected of having concealed information in this affair, which ended definitively in 2007 with their acquittal before the Court of Cassation. Then Roman magistrates reopened the Ustica investigation in 2008 following statements by former leader Francesco Cossiga, 81, who said that a French missile had shot down the Italian DC-9.
When he himself returned to the Palazzo Chigi in 2000 as Prime Minister, Amato would have decided to “write to Presidents Clinton and Chirac to ask them to shed light on this air tragedy”. “I received very polite replies referring me to the competent bodies. But afterwards, I heard nothing more. Total silence,” he added. Today he asks Emmanuel Macron, barely born during the tragedy, to “wash away the shame that weighs on France” either by demonstrating that this thesis is unfounded, or, if it is confirmed, by presenting the most apologetic sincere to Italy and to the families of the victims.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called on Amato to provide concrete evidence for his accusations. “I ask President Amato, in addition to his deductions, to let us know if he is in possession of elements which would make it possible to reconsider the conclusions of justice and of Parliament, and to make them available to the government. »
