Sharon Hurst Duross said her family spends every Dec. 21 burying her brother.
It’s a grim anniversary and Sunday marks the 20th year since Mark Hurst, 38, and 269 other people were killed when a bomb hidden aboard Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Mr. Hurst was one of 180 Americans killed, making it the largest terrorist attack against the U.S. until nearly 3,000 people were killed Sept. 11, 2001.
“It builds a cold, cold part inside of your body that wasn’t there before,” Ms. Duross said. “Our lives are never the same.”
Even as much of the world has begun measuring distance from the attack in decades, it’s far from over for those involved.
Persistent questions remain about the guilt of convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer serving a life sentence. An appeal is expected to be considered in 2009, though Megrahi is gravely ill with cancer.
Ms. Duross and about 20 other families also remain in legal limbo waiting to receive compensation from the Libyan government through settlements to be distributed by the U.S. The two countries restored diplomatic relations in 2006.
The Libyan government had reached a settlement in which it agreed to pay $10 million for each victim of Pan Am 103, but those settlements were paid to the estates of the victims and occasionally didn’t include the siblings and parents of adult victims, according to Mark Zaid, a lawyer representing Ms. Duross and the families of other victims awaiting compensation.
Ms. Duross and others not included in the initial settlement had sued the Libyan government separately. Those lawsuits were halted this year because of an agreement between the U.S. and Libya in which Libya agreed to pay $1.5 billion to the families of victims of Pan Am 103 and other terrorist attacks who had not been compensated.
The U.S. government said the agreement was for victims’ families to receive fair compensation, but the money has not been distributed yet. It remains unclear exactly when it will and how much each family will receive, though the settlements could be several million dollars each.
“Time is not on our side; they’ve been waiting for closure for 20 years and it’s not forthcoming,” Mr. Zaid said. “Our battle now is with the U.S. government; it’s not with Libya.”
For now, Ms. Duross and her family continue to wait.
“I would like for it to be settled I would like for your mother to have some peace before she dies,” said Ms. Duross, whose mother is 85.
On the day of the bombing, Ms. Duross recalled, she received a phone call at work from her father, which was highly unusual. Twenty years later, she remembers clearly the terrible wailing in the background.
“I said, ’Dad, what’s that horrible sound in the background?’ ” Ms. Duross said. “He said, ’That’s your mother screaming.’ ”
Even then, the family wasn’t sure whether Mr. Hurst was among the dead.
He wasn’t supposed to be on Pan Am 103.
He was supposed to fly home on a later British Airways flight, but the father of two young children changed his flight to get home earlier for Christmas.
Ms. Duross remembers his love of the Grateful Dead, fishing and the St. Louis Cardinals. “He was so gentle, which makes it all the worse,” she said.
Ms. Duross said it’s not so much the money her family is interested in, but an official acknowledgement of their grief and suffering. “I can’t put a price tag on a death, on the murder of my brother,” she said.
In agreeing to pay the settlements, Libya “accepted the responsibility for the actions of its officials,” though it didn’t actually admit to carrying out the plot.
“Libya was responsible, and they should be held accountable,” Ms. Duross said. “I don’t feel like that’s asking too much.”
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