Families of those killed in a 1989 terror attack on a French airliner will get more compensation from a charity closely linked to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but Libya denies responsibility.

　　In a statement yesterday, the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations said that a privately financed "fund for the victims of terrorism" it had established, not the Libyan government, would pay unspecified compensation to the families of the 170 people who died when the French UTA airliner exploded over the Niger desert.

　　Gadhafi had announced the agreement in a speech a day earlier but offered no details. The foundation, which is headed by one of Gadhafi's sons and has paid a major role in his efforts to clean up his image, portrayed the agreement as a humanitarian gesture.

　　French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, speaking in a radio interview in France yesterday, said "the foundations of an agreement have been found" and he hoped the accord would be quickly wrapped up.

　　After the 1999 verdict, Libya agreed to transfer US million to France to compensate the victims, but Gadhafi said at the time that that was not an admission of guilt. Families of the victims have campaigned unsuccessfully for Gadhafi, long accused of sponsoring anti-Western terrorism around the world, be tried in the bombing.

　　French families began lobbying for a new compensation agreement after Libya recently agreed to pay families of the 270 victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, up to US.7 billion, or up to US million each. Families of the 170 victims of the French flight each received about US,000.

　　The French government had threatened to block a British proposal to lift the sanctions, saying it wanted a better deal for the UTA victims' relatives.