Lockerbie plane bombing suspect taken into U.S. custody
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. Photo: Georges De Keerle/Getty Images
A Libyan man suspected of making a bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and killed 270 people, including 190 Americans, was taken into U.S. custody on Sunday, AP reports.
Why it matters: Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi was taken into U.S. custody roughly two years after the U.S. announced charges against him, alleging that new evidence indicated Mas’ud had created the explosive device.
- The Lockerbie bombing remains the single deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out in the United Kingdom and the second deadliest terrorist attack for Americans.
What they're saying: A Department of Justice official confirmed to AP that Mas’ud had been taken into U.S. custody and would make an initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
- "The families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi ("Mas'ud" or "Masoud") is in U.S. custody," a spokesperson for Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said Sunday, according to BBC.
- "Scottish prosecutors and police, working with U.K. government and U.S. colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with Al Megrahi to justice."
The big picture: Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, is the only man to have been convicted over the attack after a Scottish court convened in The Netherlands and tried him.
- He was imprisoned for life but was released in 2009 by the Scottish government after being diagnosed with cancer and died in Libya in 2012.
- The charges against Mas’ud resulted from an interview he gave to Libyan law enforcement in 2012 after he was arrested following the collapse of Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
- U.S. officials said Mas’ud had admitted to building the Lockerbie bomb and worked with two other conspirators to carry out the attack, which he said was ordered by Libyan intelligence.
- Mas'ud was also involved in the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle Discotheque in Berlin, which killed two American service members and a Turkish woman, according to U.S. officials.
