Alleged Lockerbie bombmaker in US custody — Scotland
The Stone of Remembrance for the victims of the Lockerbie Air Disaster, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the town, is seen at the Memorial Garden, Dryfesdale Cemetery, Lockerbie, southwestern Scotland, on December 21, 2018 on the 30th anniversary of the attack. (Photo by Jane Barlow / POOL / AFP)
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 December 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.”
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