A French appeals court yesterday ruled that the Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gadafy, could face prosecution in France over the 1989 bombing of a French jetliner that killed 170 people.
In an embarrassing decision for Paris, which is currently trying to finesse Col Gadafy back into the international fold, the court rejected the state prosecutor's arguments that, as a sitting head of state, Col Gadafy could not be prosecuted.
The decision, on the grounds that acts of terrorism are not covered by presidential immunity, effectively gave France's leading anti-terrorist judge, Mr Brug uiere, the green light to try and bring Col Gadafy to trial for "complicity in murder in relation to a terrorist act".
Relatives of the passengers and crew on board the UTA DC-10, which crashed over Niger en route from the Republic of Congo to Paris, started the action against the Libyan leader after a French court last year tried six Libyans - including Col Gadafy's brother-in-law - in absentia for the bombing and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
Derek Scally adds from Berlin:
A man on trial for murder in Frankfurt has said that Libya provided weapons and helped plan an attack on a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in 1975 during which three people were killed.
Mr Hans-Joachim Klein (52) said that the Libyan embassy in Vienna provided weapons as well as information about the meeting taking place in the city of delegates from OPEC, the organisation of oil producing nations.