Libyan Unrest May Help Victims of Pan Am 103 Bombing

Police and investigators look at what remains of the flight deck of Pan Am 103 on a field in Lockerbie, Scotland in this Dec 22, 1988 file photo . (AP Photo/File)

Family members of the victims who died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 view the current unrest in Libya as the right time for the United States to reactivate the criminal investigation into the airliner's explosion.

Muammar al-Qaddafi's former justice minister recently claimed that the Libyan leader was the one who personally gave the order to attack the airplane. The explosion resulted in the deaths of 270 people.

Victoria Cummock, whose husband died in the bombing, wants the U.S. Government to actively pursue Qaddafi.

"Twenty-two years and five administrations have done very little to bring these people to justice," she says.

Paul Hudson's 16-year-old daughter Melina was on the flight and he sees federal indictments against Qaddafi as one way to end the bloodshed.

Congressman Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, who accompanied Cummock and another family member representing the victims to a Capitol Hill press conference, says the Obama administration has been caught off guard by the recent uprisings in the Middle East, especially in Libya.

The Ohio representative and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee points to legislation being drafted by Republican colleague, Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as an example that the White House response to the unrest and bloodshed as "tepid." Ros-Lehtinen has called for a Libyan no-fly zone, an arms embargo, as well as travel and business contract suspensions.

"While we welcome the administration's decision to freeze some assets this is simply not enough," Chabot said. He says Ros-Lehtinen's legislation will "hit them where it hurts."