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The current situation remains still unclear, though a German attorney is currently getting back on cases where Gaddafi’s terror support has been under investigation in the US.
The case has been closed by the foreign ministry in Germany after the 164 non-US-victims have been paid in the 2004- and the US-victims in the 2008-settlements.
Though the US-Citizen of the same attack received about 20 times the amount of what the non-US-citizen received in their settlement……….
The non-US-citizen have been arguing for a long time about this unfair treatment of being less valuable than US-citizen. BUT .. well the US legal system is different from the German legal system. For a long time it looked as if the US-citizen might have not been getting any compensation at all. They received their compensation 4 years later through extensive influence of the US attorneys and pulling political strings.
The German payment was the result of a wide range of issues starting from medial and political pressure of the Berlin attorney Andreas Schulz and his special engagement in the trial and later years, to financial and industrial as well as political interests from Germany to establish friendly relationships with the former terror sponsoring State of Libya and Gaddafi.
It resulted in an EX GRATIA Settlement where Libya paid an amount of 35 Million US-Dollar to the German victims. In total 164 non-US-victims received compensation in tranches during late 2004 until 2005.
Was the amount based on German law appropiate?
The victims will say no. But the German law would give a different answer based on compensational figures in other cases.
After the US-citizen received an amount of 3 Million per person (before deduction of attorney fees) in 2008 voices from German victims have been raised that they are not happy that they received so much less. They also feel that they got rushed into the German settlement.
Who was responsable for the German settlement amount?
Responsable for the amount with Tripolis was attorney Ullrich von Jeinsen. He got very late into the picture, had nothing to do with the trial, nothing to do with the ending of the case but got 5 victims ….taken away from another attorney, as other attorneys suggested he is good in out of court settlements. Again for the good or bad he was the one and the main person dealing with the authorities in Tripolis in private talks to arrange the settlement amount.
The German settlement was an out of court settlement resulting in the EX GRATIA payment as the legal Germany system does not alow a legal case against a State or president of a State. (other than in the US)
Attorney Andreas Schulz has been working on various Gaddafi`s state sponsored terror cases even after both LaBelle settlements in the US and Germany have been paid. He devoted years of examining files and kept contact to US authorities and victims of not settled still open cases of Gaddafi`s terror sponsoring acts until lately.
What is happening now?
Is this the end of the case?
The answer is not that simple and easy.
Is the contract and waiver the non-US-victims signed a legal binding paper with no loop holes?
There have been voices who said no and that there might be a chance to put that into question.
Nevertheless this is an important isssue!
Have those poeple who signed and constructed the contract been leaglly asigned to sign for the libyan goverment or was this just a personal show of Gadaffi people. Gaddafi often said, I am a libyan leader but not the entire regime or responsable for the libyan parlament and regime. He was a despot maybe a tyrann but was he really the chief of state. Is this document a legal binding document?
This is an open question which might not even attorney Andreas Schulz who was working on the question is able to answer yet.
ALSO
There is evidence that not all person who have been responable for the attack in planing and organisation have ever been questioned, neither been convicted or arrested. There are still people fugitive…….being responsable for the Labelle bombing and furthermore the downing of the Lockerbie flight.
There are still frozen assets from the Gaddafi family in Germany and in other countries. But can those frozen assets help to increase the amount to fill the gap to what the US-victims received?
Still many open questions!
The case is not dead. But are there attorney who are motivated to still work on that case?
The essentiell step is to build a united group of victims.
Is there any chance that there ever will be anything happening without the tremandous essential
work and knowledge Andreas Schulz put into this case?
I doubt that.