Itavia’s DC9 which crashed near Ustica on 27 June 1980 and was shot down by a French missile. This was claimed in an interview with Repubblica by former premier Giuliano Amato. “A plan had been launched to hit the plane on which Gaddafi was flying – he says – but the Libyan leader escaped the trap because he was warned by Craxi. Now the Elysée can wash away the shame that weighs on Paris”.
“After forty years the innocent victims of Ustica have not received justice. Why keep hiding the truth? The time has come to shed light on a terrible state secret. Macron could do it. And NATO could do it. Who knows now, speak: he would have great merits towards the families of the victims and towards history”, Amato affirms in the interview, underlining that “the most credible version is that of the responsibility of the French Air Force, with the complicity of the Americans. They wanted to kill Gaddafi, flying on a Mig of his aviation. The plan was to simulate a NATO exercise, a staging that would have allowed the attack to be passed off as an involuntary accident”.
“No act concerning the DC9 tragedy is covered by state secrecy and over the decades a long job has been carried out by the judicial authority and by the parliamentary commissions of inquiry”. The prime minister says so Giorgia Meloni, commenting on Giuliano Amato’s interview with the newspaper la Repubblica on the Ustica massacre.
For further information ANSA Agency Ustica: what happened on the evening of 27 June 1980 – News – Ansa.it The disaster along the Bologna-Palermo route, 81 victims (ANSA)
“Giuliano Amato’s statements on the Ustica massacre open up, after forty years, truly disturbing scenarios that require the right recognition of those state bodies that from the beginning tried to reconstruct the truth of what happened and the related responsibilities. Among these, I think it is right to mention Paolo Borsellino, head of the Prosecutor of the Republic of Marsala”. This is what he declares the vice president of the Superior Council of the judiciary, Fabio Pinelli which announces: “I will share with the entire Superior Council to evaluate the opportunity to advance to the Prosecutor of the Republic of Marsala the request to make accessible all the documents of the procedure of potential interest of that investigation”. “Borsellino – continues the vice president of the CSM – carried out, with his usual and recognized professional ability and moral rectitude, a very delicate investigative activity often colliding with reticence and misdirections. It is enough to recall the story on the Marsala radar, as deservedly reconstructed by the late journalist Andrew Purgatori”. “For these reasons, I will share with the entire Superior Council to evaluate the opportunity to submit to the Prosecutor of the Republic of Marsala the request to make accessible all the documents of the procedure of potential interest of that investigation, as well as the documentary compendium of the initiatives brought by Dr. Borsellino at the time.All this, not only to commemorate once again Paolo Borsellino’s extraordinary contribution in the interest of the State, but also out of a moral duty towards the families of the victims, to see finally recognized the right to reconstruction – as far as possible – of the historical truth of the tragedy of Ustica”, concluded Pinelli.
‘Gaddafi was warned of the danger’ says Amato. Bobo Craxi’s reply
“Gaddafi – continues Amato – was warned of the danger and did not get on his plane. And the missile fired against the Mig ended up hitting the DC9. The most accredited hypothesis is that that missile was launched by a French fighter”. “At first the military had closed in an armored silence, hindering the investigations. And when I played a role in this affair as undersecretary, in 1986, I began to receive visits from generals who wanted to convince me of the bomb thesis. I understood that there was a truth that needed to be shielded. And our Air Force was deployed in defense of the lie.”
“I learned later, but without having proof – he continues – that it was Craxi who warned Gaddafi. He had no interest in it coming out: he would have been accused of infidelity to NATO and of espionage”. “It was not entirely unreasonable that the generals, in order to keep the secret safe, were careful not to share it with politicians”, he continues, and politics, for its part, “had no advantage in knowing all the way. In any case the truth was uncomfortable. And it was better to leave it buried”. Between fidelity to the Constitution and fidelity to NATO, Amato argues, the second prevailed: “An apparatus made up of military exponents has repeatedly denied the truth. All these people covered up the crime for reasons of state. I do not justify, and yet I understand the pressures which led to the concealment of the truth, but 40 years later it is difficult to understand. I wonder why Macron, even by birth extraneous to the tragedy – concludes Amato – does not want to remove the shame that weighs on France. Either by demonstrating that this thesis is unfounded or extending the deepest apologies to Italy and to the families of the victims in the name of its government”.
“It has already been written in the history books that my father warned Gaddafi that they would bomb him. But in 1986”: this is how Bobo Craxi underlined on Twitter after the words of former prime minister Giuliano Amato on the 1980 Ustica massacre.
According to Amato, it was in fact Bettino Craxi who warned Gaddafi of the danger of being bombed if he got on the plane and the missile dropped ended up against the DC9 causing the death of 81 people.
No comment from the Elysee. The foreign ministry.’ Available if Rome asks for it’
“We have no comments to make”: this is how the Elysée press service replied this morning to a request for a comment on the interview with former prime minister, Giuliano Amato, in which French responsibility for the Ustica disaster was reaffirmed and President Emmanuel Macron was asked to present the apologies from France.
“On this tragedy, France has provided every element in its possession whenever asked”: did it know today the Quai d’Orsay, prompted after the publication of the interview with former Prime Minister Giuliano Amato on the Ustica disaster. The ministry adds that all information has been provided “especially in the context of the investigations conducted by the Italian justice system. We are obviously available to work with Italy if they ask us.”
Donselli (Copasir): ‘We have always asked for the declassification of documents’
“What we do at Copasir is secret and I would never allow myself to reveal it. Amato said some important things. We have always asked for the declassification of all the documents and unclear pages of those years. Amato says things, in the past he said the exact opposite”. Giovanni Donzelli, vice president of Copasir and organization manager of Fdi on the sidelines of the Conservatives and Reformists event in Reggio Calabria. “We wonder – continues Donzelli – why Amato says these things today, he will explain it well and will also explain why he said other things in the past, but it’s welcome when people talk it’s good news and when everyone tells their truth it’s good news. The problem is when people are silent.”
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