Rome
The accusation had been circulating for years, but as a rumor. This time, it is a former Italian prime minister (1992-1993 and 2000-2001) who makes the accusation in an interview with La Repubblica. According to the democrat Giuliano Amato, 85 years old, it would be the France who, during a plan organized by the NATO countries to get rid of Gaddafi (plan that would have gone wrong), would have shot down a DC-9 of the airline Itavia. The plane that was to fly from Bologna to Palermo crashed in the Tyrrhenian Sea, near the island of Ustica, north of Sicily, on June 27, 1980. The crash killed 81 people.
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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 rob Gaddafi, by flying him in a Mig (Soviet aircraft manufacturer, editor's note) of his air force." A plan, on paper very complex, which consisted in "simulating 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 that was to pass off the attack as an "unintentional accident", continues the politician without advancing concrete evidence of his accusations. But things would have gone wrong: "Gaddafi was warned of the danger and did not get on his plane. And the missile launched at the Libyan Mig ended up hitting the Itavia DC9 which sank with eighty-one innocents inside." Paris and Washington have always denied any involvement of their aircraft in the drama. "On this drama, the France provided all the elements in its possession each time it was requested," says the Quai d'Orsay to Rai. The ministry adds that each information was provided "in particular in the context of investigations carried out by the Italian justice". "We obviously remain available to work with Italy if they ask us to.
»No hard evidence
Also in his interview with La Repubblica, Amato explains that once undersecretary at the presidency of the council, six years after the fact, he would have received the visit of generals who tried to convince him of the thesis of the explosion of a bomb inside the plane. A thesis that, according to him, replaced that of the structural defect of the aircraft. "I understood that there was a truth that had to be hidden. And our air force was ready to defend lies." Bettino Craxi, then president of the council and who died in 2000, is said to have expressly asked him "not to bother the militiamen".
A lengthy judicial investigation led to a criminal trial against several senior Italian military officials suspected of withholding information in the case, which ended definitively in 2007 with their acquittal before the Court of Cassation. Then Roman magistrates reopened the investigation into Ustica in 2008 following statements by former leader Francesco Cossiga, 81, who said that a French missile had shot down the Italian DC-9.
An appeal to Emmanuel Macron
When he himself returned to Palazzo Chigi in 2000 as prime minister, Amato reportedly decided to "write to Presidents Clinton and Chirac asking them to shed light on this air tragedy." I received very polite replies referring me to the competent bodies. But after that, I didn't hear anything again. Total silence," he adds. He is now asking Emmanuel Macron, barely born at the time of the tragedy, to "wash away the shame that weighs on the France" either by demonstrating that this thesis is unfounded, or, if confirmed, by presenting the most sincere apologies to Italy and the families of the victims.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called on Amato to bring concrete elements to his accusations. "I ask President Amato, in addition to his deductions, to let us know if he has any elements that would allow us to reverse the conclusions of the judiciary and parliament, and to make them available to the government."