An old case never elucidated resurfaces: that of the fall at sea of an Italian airliner in 1980, a disaster which cost the lives of 81 passengers and crew members. For forty years, one of the theses evoked is that of a plane shot down by mistake by French or American fire. On Saturday September 2, the former President of the Italian Council, Giuliano Amato, revived this thesis and challenged the President French, Emmanuel Macron.
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” The most credible version is that of the responsibility of the French Air Force, with the complicity of the Americans “, launched Giuliano Amato in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica. The former President of the Council of Ministers (from 1992 to 1993) supports one of the theses most often evoked to explain a drama which marked Italy.
On June 27, 1980, fighter planes were tracking one or more Libyan Air Force MiG-23s. Leader Muammar Gaddafi could have been on board, and the goal would have been to eliminate him. The carcass of a Libyan MiG-23 was found in the mountains of southern Italy on July 18, 1980.
But on June 27, 1980, in the air, another aircraft disappeared: a civilian plane, a DC-9 from the Itavia company with 81 occupants on board. He was damaged at sea near the island of Ustica, while making the Bologna-Palermo connection. This plane would have been shot down by mistake or would have been the victim of a collision with other planes.
A plane victim of a potential attempt to eliminate Gaddafi
The DC-9 would have been caught in a war scenario “to the point of becoming collateral damage of the will of France and the United States to” kill Gaddafi “says Giuliano Amato. During the 2000s, Libyan dictator Gaddafi said Washington and Paris tried to eliminate him by thinking him aboard the Soviet-made MiG-23. But the United States and France have always denied any involvement.
In his interview at La RepubblicaGiuliano Amato asks the French President, Emmanuel Macron, to “ wash away the shame that hangs over France “, either ” by demonstrating that this thesis is unfounded, or, if confirmed, by presenting an apology to Italy and to the families of the victims “.
These words are taken seriously enough in Italy to make Giorgia Meloni react. The current President of the Council of Ministers has called on Giuliano Amato to bring ” concrete elements to his accusations.