Possibly his biggest case (in terms of number of people involved) was that of UTA Flight 772 which was sabotaged over the Sahara Desert in 1989 with the loss of 170 lives. Bruguière was instrumental in having six Libyans prosecuted in Paris and convicted "in absentia". However, in the 2001 book "Manipulations Africaines", he was accused by the French journalist Pierre Péan of having deliberately ignored evidence pointing to Lebanon, Syria and Iran in order to put the blame on Libya.