The person accused of creating the bomb that killed 270 folks after it blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 is taken into United States custody.
A Libyan man suspected of creating the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish city of Lockerbie in 1988 is in US custody, in line with regulation enforcement officers in Scotland and america.
The households of these killed within the so-called Lockerbie bombing have been informed the suspect “Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is in US custody”, Scotland’s Crown Workplace and Procurator Fiscal Service stated in an announcement on Sunday.
The Crown Workplace added that “Scottish prosecutors and police, working with UK authorities and US colleagues, will proceed to pursue this investigation, with the only goal of bringing those that acted together with Al-Megrahi to justice.”
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted of bombing the flight and was jailed for all times in 2001.
Mas’ud was taken into custody about two years after the US filed expenses in opposition to him in 2020, 32 years because the bombing that killed 270 folks, together with 190 from the US.
“In the end, this man answerable for killing Individuals and lots of others can be topic to justice for his crimes,” William Barr, the US legal professional basic on the time, stated at a information convention.
Mas’ud is anticipated to make his preliminary court docket look in a federal court docket in Washington, DC. Additional particulars in regards to the timing of the court docket listening to can be forthcoming, a US Division of Justice spokesperson stated.
The Boeing 747, travelling from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 folks on board the aircraft and one other 11 on the bottom. It stays the deadliest assault on British soil.
In 1991, two different Libyan intelligence operatives have been charged within the bombing: al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.
Al-Megrahi is thus far the one particular person convicted over the assault. He misplaced one enchantment and deserted one other earlier than being freed in 2009 on compassionate grounds as a result of he was terminally sick with most cancers.
He died in Libya in 2012, nonetheless protesting his innocence.
Fhimah was acquitted of all expenses, however Scottish prosecutors have maintained that al-Megrahi didn't act alone.
In 2020 the US unsealed felony expenses in opposition to Mas’ud, saying he had labored as a technical skilled in constructing explosive units.
A breakthrough within the investigation got here when US officers in 2017 obtained a duplicate of an interview that Mas’ud, an explosives skilled for Libya’s intelligence service, had given to Libyan regulation enforcement.
This happened in 2012 after he was taken into custody, following the collapse of the federal government of the nation’s longtime ruler, Muammar Gaddafi.
In that interview, US officers stated, Mas’ud admitted constructing the bomb within the Pan Am assault and dealing with two different conspirators to hold it out.
He additionally stated the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Gaddafi thanked him and different members of the crew after the assault, in line with an FBI affidavit filed within the case.
Whereas Mas’ud is now the third Libyan intelligence official charged within the US in reference to the Lockerbie bombing, he could be the primary to face trial in a US courtroom.
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