For families of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, a letter from Libya accepting responsibility may yet secure them millions in compensation, but it feels at best like a hollow victory.
Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted two years ago of bombing the airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people.
Last night Libya informed the UN it "accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials" in the crime. Under a deal years in the making, that admission could pave the way for family members to receive up to $10 million per victim. But Ms Jean Berkley, whose son Alistair died in the bombing, told Reuters she just doesn't care about the money. "We are not interested in pursuing compensation. We are interested in pursuing answers," she said by telephone. "Who was behind it for a start? I don't think anybody thinks it was only one Libyan acting on his own.
"The Libyan statement only accepts responsibility for the actions of their officials, not the state accepting any responsibility for what's happened," she said.
Under the Pan Am deal, Libya's acceptance of responsibility for the bombing would prompt the United States and Britain to call for the lifting of United Nations sanctions.
If sanctions are lifted, families would receive the first $4 million of a potential $10 million per victim, which Libya is to put in a $2.7 billion compensation fund. If the United States lifts its own sanctions, families would get another $4 million, and if Libya is removed from Washington's list of terror sponsors, they would get $2 million.
The deal could still become unravelled if France blocks a UN Security Council resolution to lift sanctions on Libya. Paris accepted a far smaller settlement from Tripoli for victims of the bombing of a UTA flight over Niger in 1989, and has hinted it might use its veto on the Lockerbie deal to press for a bigger settlement.