The parents of a teacher who was killed in the Lockerbie air disaster last night spoke of how they plan to use a multi-million compensation pay-out to continue his life's ambition.
Barrie and Jean Berkley, of Sandhoe, near Hexham, Northumberland, say they will spend any money they get to finish the charitable work their son Alistair started.
Alistair, pictured left, was one of the 270 people killed in the terrorist attack when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in 1988.
Before his death, Alistair spent six months working as a law teacher in Uganda.
The experience touched him so deeply he made a series of notes about how to make life better for the country's poor. Mr and Mrs Berkley now plan to use compensation cash paid by Libya - between £3m and £6m - to turn those ideas into reality.
Since setting up the Alistair Berkley Charitable Trust five years ago, the couple have worked to support Oxfam's campaign to fight for better land rights in the third world and believe their share of a £1.7bn compensation deal can be used to make a real difference.
Mr Berkley, 76, said last night: "We aren't able to give detailed plans as yet because there is still a
* ong way to go before we even get this money, but poverty and the lack of land rights were two of the things Alistair was really touched by. That is why these are the issues we'll be looking at."
He added: "Even though we can carry on Alistair's work, no amount of money will ever make up for his death.
"We are taking it because we believe we can do more good with it than the Libyan government, but all we have ever wanted are answers. Answers about security and the reason the plane was blown up.
"The compensation package is really the result of what the US families and government want. The British families meet as often as possible and we will not stop fighting for a full public inquiry."
Mr Berkley said they are still frustrated at being no nearer to knowing why their son died.
He said: "We have no sense of closure. Libya has not agreed to accept responsibility as a country. It is just accepting responsibility because it wants sanctions lifted and because it has to as one of its agents was involved."
Libya last night officially accepted responsibility for the bombing in a letter to the United Nation. It pledged to transfer the money to a Swiss bank account after talks with the British and American governments on Wednesday.
The first installment, worth £675m, will be released as early as next week when the UN Security Council is expected to announce the lifting of sanctions imposed after the atrocity. The remaining £1bn will come in two further stages - once the US lifts sanctions on Libya and when it removes it from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
David Ben-Aryea, spokesman for the British relatives, said it was an important step forward, but there were no guarantees all the compensation would be paid. "The first installment of £2.4m per family could be paid within the next few weeks, but the second installment of £2.4m and the third installment of £1.2m are conditional," he said. "There are serious misgivings as to whether either of those installments will ever be made."
Page 2: Libya takes the first step
Libya last night officially accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, submitting a letter to the United Nations Security Council that paves the way for the lifting of sanctions.
The United States and Britain also delivered letters to the president of the security council declaring that Libya had met the conditions required to lift UN sanctions.
Last night's letter came two days after lawyers for Libya and for the families of the Lockerbie victims agreed to a £1.8 billion compensation fund for the bombing that killed 270 people - 259 people on board the flight and 11 on the ground.
Two Libyans were charged in connection with the bombing, and in an effort to force Muammar Gaddafi's government to hand them over, the security council banned arms sales and air links to Libya.
Under a 1992 UN resolution, sanctions against Libya were not to be lifted until the government acknowledged responsibility for the bombing, paid fair compensation, renounced terrorism and disclosed all it knew about the explosion.
Last night, Syria's UN Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe, the current president of the security council, received letters from Libyan charge d'affaires Ahmed Own, US Deputy Political Counsellor Gordon Olson and British Ambassador Sir Emyr Jones Parry.
"I and my American colleague and the Libyan charge just delivered letters to the security council," Sir Emyr said. "The Libyan charge delivered a letter which set out very clearly their view, now shared by the British and the American governments, that Libya has met the conditions set out by the security council for the lifting of sanctions."
The next step was for Britain to circulate a draft resolution lifting sanctions, UN diplomats had said yesterday.
The compensation deal - settled at the 11th hour on Wednesday after two and a half years of negotiations to settle a 1996 lawsuit against Libya - is the largest payout in an aviation case or in an international compensation scheme. The fund will be set up in an account at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.
A 1992 security council resolution banned arms sales and air links to Libya in an effort to force Gaddafi's government to hand over two Libyans indicted in the Pan Am bombing. After the men were handed over for trial in April 1999, the council suspended sanctions indefinitely.
In 2001, a Scottish court convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi of the bombing and sentenced him to life imprisonment. A second Libyan was acquitted.
