Overview
- A bomb packed with metal fragments exploded inside the La Belle disco in West Berlin on April 5, 1986, killing three people — two US soldiers and a Turkish visitor — and injuring scores, including 28 severely and more than 250 with ruptured eardrums.
- US officials swiftly blamed Libya and answered with military force, embedding the attack in the era’s confrontation with Muammar al-Gaddafi.
- German courts convicted four defendants in 2001 with 12–14 year sentences, the verdict became final in 2004, and that same year lawyers secured about €28.4 million from Libya for 168 German victims and families.
- Survivors describe decades of surgeries, burns and nightmares, with former waiter Heino Möhring recalling being hurled by the blast, tying off his bleeding leg with a belt and still waking to the scene today.
- Stasi archives later showed East German knowledge of the plot, and a new German article reports claims of European assistance to the Gaddafi regime that invite further scrutiny.