WASHINGTON,
DC — A
Libyan man accused of making the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over
Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people, has been taken into US custody, the
Justice Department confirmed Sunday.
اضافة اعلان
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.
The Justice Department confirmed in a
statement that Masud was in US custody, following an announcement by Scottish
prosecutors, without saying how the suspect ended up in US hands.
A department spokesperson said Masud was expected to make an
initial appearance in the US District Court for the District of
Columbia, but
did not specify when.
Only one individual has so far been
prosecuted for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on December 21, 1988 — which
remains the deadliest terror attack in British history.
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.”
Libyan
connection
Scottish
officials gave no information 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 Muammar Gaddafi. According to the US indictment, he assembled
and programmed the bomb that brought down the Pan Am jumbo jet.
The investigation was relaunched in 2016 when Washington
learned of Masud’s arrest after Gaddafi’s ouster and killing in 2011, and his
reported confession of involvement to the new Libyan regime in 2012. However,
the Libyan connection to Lockerbie has long been disputed by some.
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