News - Middle East: A former Italian prime minister has claimed that a French air force missile had downed an Italian passenger jet in 1980 and killed all 81 people on board in a failed attempt to assassinate former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. 

In an interview with Italian daily Repubblica published on Saturday, Giuliano Amato said the Itavia Airlines Flight 870 passenger plane en route from Bologna to Palermo was brought down over the Mediterranean Sea on June 27, 1980 after the French air force accidentally fired a missile toward it, whereas a Libyan military aircraft was the real target.
NATO planned to "simulate an exercise, with many planes in action, during which a missile was supposed to be fired" with Gaddafi as the target, Amato said.