DIEU
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
28 October 1993
BY FAX
Mr Anthony W L Ng Documents Division Immigration Department HONG KONG
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071- 270 ~ 3287.
Dear Anthony.
REVIVAL OF KAL-007 COMPENSATION CLAIM
1.
2.
Thank you for your letter of 22 October.
In your letter of 30 September, you mentioned the Hong Kong next-of-kin's request that the UK Government should consider pursuing a compensation claim with the Korean Government. This has been extensively discussed and we feel that such a claim would not be appropriate. KAL is a privately-owned airline. There has never been any suggestion of the Korean Government itself bearing any responsibility for the tragedy, unlike the Soviet Government, which was clearly at fault in failing to make proper contact with the crew of the plane before shooting it down.
3. The next-of-kin might wish to consider pursuing a civil action against KAL. The American Families Association is at present pursuing such an action through the US courts, and is asking for $2m per victim. However, none of the American families have at any time accepted any compensation from KAL, for fear of prejudicing future litigation, whereas all but one of the Hong Kong families have already received $100,000 per victim in compensation from KAL under the terms of the Warsaw Convention.
4. If the Hong Kong next-of-kin wish to explore this possibility, useful points of contact might be:
Hans Ethrington - ABT
Chairman, American Association for the Families of KAL-007 Victims
PO Box 8189
New York 10116-4650
USA