Govt must get truth on Ustica disaster says PD

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 5 - The centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) on Tuesday filed a parliamentary question urging the government to get to the bottom of the 1980 Ustica plane crash that left 81 people dead after former Italian premier Giuliano Amato said at the weekend that he believes a French missile caused the disaster.
    Amato said the Dc9 Bologna-Palermo flight operated by the now-defunct Itavia airline that crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica on June 27, 1980, was hit in an attempt to assassinate late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
    He said Gaddafi "evaded the trap" because he was tipped off by late Italian Socialist Party leader and ex-premier Bettino Craxi.
    After the comments caused a furore, Amato clarified that he did not have any new evidence, saying that he had presented a hypothesis that he considered highly credible in a bid to get the people who did know to reveal the truth.
    In its question to the government Tuesday, presented in both houses of parliament, the PD asked "what necessary and urgent initiatives does the Italian Government intend to assume at an international level, also via formal requests, to finally ensure the full establishment of the truth of the facts that occurred to the DC9 Itavia in the skies above Ustica on June 27 1980".
    The French foreign ministry said Saturday that Paris has already given all the information it has in relation to the Ustica air disaster but was ready to cooperate further if called on to do so.
    Bobo Craxi, Bettino Craxi's son, said his father did give Gaddafi a warning, but it regarded the 1986 US bombing of Libya, in which Gaddafi's months old adopted daughter was allegedly killed in Tripoli. (ANSA).