Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Justice for the Living Victims of Lockerbie Act. This bill would create a process to seek justice for a group Pan American World Airways pilots who lost their careers and pensions following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the subsequent bankruptcy and closure of Pan Am. On December 21, 1988, the state of Libya committed an infamous act of terror by bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 innocent civilians. Despite Pan Am's greatly improved financial position in 1988, the media coverage of the terrorist attack wreaked havoc on Pan Am sales leading to its bankruptcy in 1991. In 2008, the United States entered into the U.S.-Libya Humanitarian Settlement Agreement, in which Libya paid $1.5 billion to settle claims by U.S. citizens for Libyan-sponsored terrorism. After payments by the State Department to families of death victims from Lockerbie and the La Belle Disco bombing in Germany, compensation to other victims was to be determined by the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. The Commission could only consider further claims referred to it by the State Department. One of these claimants was a group of senior Pan Am pilots, most of whom were veterans, who were over the age of 50 and lost their jobs, pensions, healthcare, and eventually their savings when Pan Am went bankrupt and closed.…”