U.S. and Scottish authorities acknowledged Sunday that the Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is in U.S. custody.
Scotland’s Crown office and Procurator Fiscal Service acknowledged in a press launch that “the households of these killed inside the Lockerbie bombing have been informed that the suspect Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is in U.S. custody.”
The U.S. Justice division confirmed the knowledge, including that “he is anticipated to make his preliminary look inside the U.S. District courtroom for the District of Columbia.” It gave no knowledge on how Mas’ud acquired here to be in U.S. custody.
Pan Am Flight 103, travelling from London to ny, exploded over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard the plane and one other eleven on the underside. It stays the deadliest terror assault on British soil.
The U.S. Justice division introduced fees in opposition to Mas’ud in December 2020, on the thirty second anniversary of the bombing.
“inside the extreme, this man accountable for killing individuals and lots of others shall be topic to justice for his crimes,” William Barr, the legal professional fundamental on the time, acknowledged at a information convention.
In 2001, former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of bombing the flight. he is up to now the one particular person convicted over the assault. He misplaced one attraction and deserted one other earlier than being freed in 2009 on compassionate grounds as a end result of he was terminally unwell with most cancers.
He died in Libya in 2012, nonetheless protesting his innocence.
U.S. say interview included admission of bomb making
A breakthrough inside the investigation acquired here when U.S. officers in 2017 obtained a duplicate of an interview that Mas’ud, a longtime explosives expert for Libya’s intelligence service, had given to Libyan regulation enforcement in 2012 after being taken into custody following the collapse of the regime of the nation’s chief, Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
In that interview, U.S. officers acknowledged, Mas’ud admitted constructing the bomb inside the Pan Am assault and dealing with two utterly different conspirators to maintain it out. He additionally acknowledged the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Gadhafi thanked him and utterly different members of the crew after the assault, primarily based on an FBI affidavit filed inside the case.
whereas Mas’ud is now the third Libyan intelligence official charged inside the U.S. in reference to the Lockerbie bombing, he could be the foremost to face trial in an American courtroom.
The Crown office in its assertion added that “Scottish prosecutors and police, working with U.okay. authorities and U.S. colleagues, will proceed to pursue this investigation, with the solely aim of bringing people who acted collectively with al-Megrahi to justice.”
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