Ex-Italian PM: France Likely Downed Passenger Plane Trying to Kill Libya’s Gaddafi
© AP Photo / Saris
Sputnik – 02.09.2023
ROME – Former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has alleged that France and its US allies were likely responsible for the mysterious passenger plane crash off Sicily in June 1980, and that the incident was the result of a plot to assassinate late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
“The most credible version is about the responsibility of the French Air Force with the complicity of the Americans and those who participated in the air war over our skies on the evening of June 27,” Amato said in an interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica on Saturday, recounting the June 27, 1980 crash of Itavia Flight 870, in which all 81 passengers and crew onboard were killed.
“A plan had been launched to hit the plane on which Gaddafi was flying,” Amato said, referring to reports of a dogfight taking place in the area between French and Libyan jets on the day the Italian passenger plane went down, and rumors that Gaddafi was on board one of the Libyan Air Force MiG jets.
The plan was to “simulate NATO drills involving many aircraft” during which a missile would have been fired – passed off as an accident – at the plane carrying Gaddafi, Amato said. However, Gaddafi got a warning from then-Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, Amato’s former rival, and never boarded the jet, with the French missile allegedly intended for him ending up hitting the Itavia plane instead.
The Itavia McDonnell Douglas DC-9 passenger jet crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea off the western Italian coast, between the islands of Ponza and Ustica en route from Bologna to Palermo.
In 2015, the Palermo Court of Appeal ruled that the crash was caused by a missile hitting the DC-9, and that the missile was fired by another aircraft that crossed the passenger plane’s route. The court ruled out previously claimed versions about a bomb being planted on board the civilian airliner.
In his interview on Saturday, Amato said the Elysee should admit its responsibility, so that it can “wash away the shame that weighs down on Paris.”
“After forty years, the innocent victims [of the crash] have not received justice. Why continue to hide the truth? The time has come to shed light on this terrible state secret. [French President Emmanuel] Macron could do it. And NATO could do it,” he said.
France and its US allies have long denied any involvement in Itavia Flight 870’s crash.
Commenting on Amato’s allegations, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called on the politician to disclose any materials he may have related to the incident.
“Taking into account that the materials concerning the DC-9 tragedy are not classified, and that the judicial authorities and parliamentary commissions have done a lot of work over decades, I ask Amato to understand whether, in addition to his conclusions, he has other elements that allow him to review the decisions of the judiciary and the parliament, and possibly to make them available, so that the government can take all possible and consistent steps,” Meloni was quoted as saying in a statement released by her office.
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In June and October 1998, Paul Offit sat on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and voted twice in favor of Wyeth-Lederle’s RotaShield rotavirus vaccine: on June 25 to recommend it for routine childhood use, and on October 22 to add it to the federal Vaccines for Children Program.¹ Offit’s own rotavirus vaccine, developed at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in partnership with Merck, was under development at the time. On October 22, 1999, exactly a year after his second vote, ACIP rescinded the RotaShield recommendation after CDC identified an elevated rate of intussusception in vaccinated infants. Intussusception is a bowel condition in which one segment of intestine telescopes into another and cuts off its own blood supply; without emergency intervention, it kills. The surveillance data at the point of withdrawal included hospitalizations and infant deaths. Offit abstained from the withdrawal vote.² Seven years later, Merck’s RotaTeq, which Offit co-invented, received ACIP recommendation for the same schedule slot. The patent sale netted him at least six million dollars by his own account, with other public estimates running higher.³
In June 2000, the United States House Committee on Government Reform published Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making. The report named Offit specifically. It concluded that “conflict of interest rules employed by the FDA and the CDC have been weak, enforcement has been lax, and committee members with substantial ties to pharmaceutical companies have been given waivers to participate in committee proceedings.”⁴
In March 2015, Basic Books published Offit’s Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine. The book accuses religious parents of moral failure. It calls for the elimination of religious exemption from vaccination law. It endorses criminal prosecution of parents who withhold pharmaceutical products from their children on religious grounds, including, under the Oregon sentencing guidelines Offit presents as a model, terms of up to twenty-five years in prison.⁵ … continue
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