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UTA victims back Lockerbie delay
By Chris Burns
PARIS, France (CNN) -- Retired stewardess Isabelle Hennequin says she knew her husband was dead when she saw the first TV report that a French DC-10 disintegrated over the Sahara Desert in 1989. Jean-Pierre Hennequin, a 38-year-old pilot and father of two, was among 170 people killed when a suitcase bomb destroyed the UTA jetliner he was flying from Chad to Paris. Isabelle had to explain to her daughters. Olivia was 8 months old at the time and too young to understand. To her daughter Lauren, then 3, she first resorted to the story of Bambi. But not for long. "Bambi's mother was killed by hunters. And one morning she told me, 'You don't set the table for Daddy for breakfast.' So I had to tell her." Isabelle and her daughters each received about $33,000 from Libya in a 1999 French court settlement. But victims' families call the settlement pocket money -- especially compared to the planned $10 million-per-victim compensation package for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270. Guillaume de Saint Marc, whose father was killed in the UTA bombing, heads a victim's group. He backs France's veiled threat to veto a U.N. resolution lifting sanctions against Libya as part of the Lockerbie settlement until the UTA families get more money. "If the sanctions are lifted before, we'd have no chance any more to have a solution for the DC-10 case," he says. The French Foreign Ministry has made a public plea to put off the U.N. vote. (Full story) "It could be a solution to have a delay to go on these contacts and to let these negotiations go further," says ministry spokeswoman Cecile Pozzo di Borgo. Charles Norrie, a Briton whose brother was killed in the UTA bombing, calls on France, Britain and the United States to work together. "Libya, it seems to me, has actually manipulated three countries very cleverly into this major split," Norrie says. "I'd like to see a bit of unity and purpose between them." France contends it's defending the relatives of victims of all 17 nationalities who perished in the UTA bombing -- including Africans, Americans, Britons, Canadians and Italians -- even if it means straining ties with Washington and London just starting to mend over the Iraqi crisis.
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