La Belle Discotheque Bombing

On April 5, 1986, a bomb packed with nails exploded at the La Belle discotheque in the West Berlin, killing two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and injuring 229 people. The four-pound bomb exploded at 1:40 A.M. on the crowded dance floor; the flying nails caused such grave injuries that dozens of the victims lost their limbs.

U.S. president Ronald Reagan quickly accused Libya of the bombing of La Belle, a popular nightspot for U.S. soldiers stationed in West Berlin. Citing intercepted communications between the Libyan embassy in East Berlin and Tripoli, Libya, Reagan ordered U.S. air raids on Libya. One of the U.S. bombs dropped 10 days after the La Belle attack hit Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi's home and killed one of his children.

The case went unsolved for years, until the collapse of the Berlin Wall allowed German investigators ...