French Air Force Shot Down Passenger Plane During Failed Assassination Attempt on Gaddafi, Says Former Italian Prime Minister

Former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has told Rome's La Repubblica newspaper that a missile from the French Air Force accidentally shot down a passenger plane over the Mediterranean Sea during a failed assassination attempt on the then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1980.

Amato requested that French President Emmanuel Macron either confirm or deny his claim regarding the causes of the aviation accident that resulted in the deaths of all 81 people on board an internal flight in Italy on June 27, 1980. He is convinced that France shot down the aircraft while targeting a Libyan military plane. He stated that Italy had warned Gaddafi, which is why the leader did not board the Libyan military aircraft returning to Tripoli from a summit in Yugoslavia.

The cause of the plane crash remains one of the oldest mysteries of modern Italy. Some say a bomb exploded on the Itavia aircraft flying from Bologna to Sicily, while others argue that a study of wreckage found on the ocean floor years later indicates it was struck by a missile.

After the crash, officials from France, the U.S., and NATO denied any military operations in the sky that night. It is believed that the missile was launched by a French fighter jet that took off from an aircraft carrier, likely off the southern coast of Corsica, Amato said.

Amato, who is now 85, revealed that in 2000, when he was Prime Minister, he wrote letters to then U.S. President Bill Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac, asking them to shed light on the incident. However, ultimately, these requests led to 'complete silence.'