LONDON: A Libyan man accused of making the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Scotland in 1988 is now in US custody, Scottish prosecutors said on Sunday.
Abu Agila Mohammad Masud was charged by the US two years ago for the Lockerbie bombing. He had previously been held in Libya for his alleged involvement in a 1986 attack on a Berlin nightclub. Only one individual has so far been prosecuted for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on Dec 21, 1988, which claimed 270 lives.
Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi spent seven years in a Scottish prison after his conviction in 2001. He died in Libya in 2012, always maintaining his innocence.
“The families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi … is in US custody,” a spokesperson for Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said.
“Scottish prosecutors and police, working with UK government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with al-Megrahi to justice.” There was no further information given on when Masud was handed over, and his fate has been tied up in the warring factionalism of Libyan politics.
He was kidnapped by a Libyan militia group, according to reports last month cited by the BBC, following his detention for the Berlin attack which killed two US soldiers and a Turkish citizen. Masud was reputedly a leading bombmaker for Libyan dictator Moamer Qadhafi.
According to the US indictment, he vd the bomb that brought down the Pan Am jumbo jet.In that narrative, the Lockerbie bombing was retaliation for the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a US Navy missile in July 1988 that killed 290 people.
