The French embassy in Italy has informed the Italian Foreign Ministry that France is now open to cooperating in the investigation of the Ustica tragedy. With a hearing scheduled for September 30, France's involvement could prompt the Rome prosecutor's office to reconsider its decision to close the case, a move the Italian government had opposed.
Since 1990, the Italian judiciary has awaited a response from France. Over six years, Judge Rosario Priore made eleven requests for information from Paris regarding the downing of the Itavia DC9 off Ustica on June 27, 1980, but received no satisfactory answers. Italy has sought radar recordings from the crash area, the positions of the aircraft carriers Clemenceau and Foch, flight plans of French jets heading to Libya, and details about the mysterious "friendly" radar trace LL004, detected by Poggio Ballone radar near the Corsican air base at Solenzara. In the 1990s, France did not comply with requests to identify the aircraft behind three radar traces.
Between 2010 and 2014, Prosecutor Erminio Amelio renewed efforts, asking for the logbooks of the two carriers, their routes, radar data, passage records, and again for movements at Solenzara, the names of personnel on duty, and whether France participated in the Demon Jam V exercise in July 1980. Italian investigators are convinced the Corsican base was operational past 5 PM, a claim Paris has always denied. Witnesses, including former military personnel, reported seeing a French aircraft carrier in the Tyrrhenian Sea, a claim refuted by France.
However, the French were not the only ones present that night. Judge Priore concluded that the plane crashed amid an aerial battle involving US (with the Saratoga carrier in Naples) and NATO jets, as evidenced by records from Ciampino. It was an international operation gone wrong, possibly targeting a Libyan Mig flying under the cover of the DC-9, perhaps the same Mig later found in Sila.
Another theory, still supported by former minister Carlo Giovanardi, suggests a bomb was planted on the plane by alleged Palestinian terrorists.
(Associated Medias) - All rights reserved