US arrests suspect in Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people in 1988

Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi was reputed to be one of the main bomb makers for Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. According to the indictment, he assembled and programmed the explosive bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103.

US and Scottish authorities reported Sunday that the Libyan suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 is in US custody.

The Crown Office and the Scottish Revenue Service said in a statement that “the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been informed that suspect Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi is in US custody.”

The US Department of Justice confirmed the information, adding that “he is expected to make his initial appearance before the US District Court for the District of Columbia.”

No further information was released about when Masud was handed over, and his fate has been tied to the warring factionalism in Libyan politics.

Masud was reputed to be one of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s main bomb makers. According to the US indictment, he assembled and programmed the bomb that brought down the Pan Am jumbo jet.

Pan Am Flight 103, en route from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on board the plane and 11 others on the ground after debris fell on them. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil.

The US Department of Justice announced new charges against Masud in December 2020, on the 32nd anniversary of the attack.

“Finally, this man responsible for killing Americans and many others will be brought to justice for his crimes,” William Barr, the attorney general at the time, said at a news conference.

In 2001, former Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing of the flight. To date he is the only person convicted of the attack. He lost one appeal and dropped another before being released in 2009 on humanitarian grounds, as he suffered from terminal cancer.

He died in Libya in 2012, still protesting his innocence.

The investigation was relaunched in 2016 when Washington learned of Masud’s arrest after the overthrow and death of Gadhafi in 2011, and of his alleged confession of involvement in the new Libyan regime in 2012.

In 2017, US officials received a copy of an interview Masud had given to Libyan security forces in 2012 after he was detained. In that interview, according to the US authorities, Masud admitted to having built the bombing of the Pan Am attack and to having worked with two other conspirators to carry it out. He also said the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Gadhafi thanked him and other members of the team after the bombing, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

Although Masud is now the third Libyan intelligence official to be charged in the United States in connection with the Lockerbie bombing, he would be the first to be tried in a US court.

The Crown Prosecution Service added in its statement that “Scottish prosecutors and police, in collaboration with the UK government and their US colleagues, will continue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing to justice those who acted alongside with al-Megrahi”.

Possible Iranian clue
However, the Libyan connection to Lockerbie has long been disputed by some.

In January 2021, Megrahi’s family lost a posthumous appeal in Scotland against his conviction, following an independent review which stated that judicial error may have occurred.

The family wants British authorities to declassify documents claiming Iran used a Syrian-based Palestinian proxy to build the bomb that brought down Flight 103.

According to this version, the Lockerbie bombing was in retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by a US Navy missile in July 1988, which caused 290 deaths.