US Charges Libyan Intelligence Operative 34 Years After Lockerbie Plane Bomb Incident

United States officials have charged a Libyan intelligence operative in connection to a 1988 incident where a bomb was used to blow up a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The announcement, which was made by both U.S. and Scottish officials on Sunday, came 34 years after the horrific attack. Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service released a statement saying that the "families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agela Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi is in U.S. custody."

Lockerbie Plane Bomb Suspect

On the other hand, the United States Justice Department confirmed the information, adding that the suspect was expected to make his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. However, officials did not provide information on how Mas'ud came to be in U.S. custody.

The passenger plane involved in the attack was Pan Am Flight 103, which was traveling from London to New York. The aircraft exploded over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, resulting in the death of all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. To this day, it remains the deadliest terror attack on British soil, as per Politico.

Officials from the U.S. Justice Department announced new charges against the suspect in December 2020, which was the 32nd anniversary of the horrific bombing. The attorney-general of the department at the time, William P. Barr, said during a news conference; "At long last, this man responsible for killing Americans and many others will be subject to justice for his crimes."

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, in 2001, was convicted of bombing the flight. To date, he is the only person convicted over the brutal attack. He has also lost one appeal and abandoned another before being set free in 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was terminally ill with cancer.

According to Fox News, al-Megrahi died in 2012 while still claiming that he was innocent regarding the attack. In 2017, a breakthrough in the investigation came when American authorities received a copy of an interview that Mas'ud, who was a longtime explosives expert for Libya's intelligence service, had given to Libyan law enforcement in 2012.

Terror Attack Suspect's Confession

During that interview, U.S. officials said that the suspect admitted to building the bomb in the Pan Am attack and to working with two other conspirators to carry out the terror attack. Mas'ud also said that the operation was an order from Libyan intelligence, noting that deceased Col. Moammar Gadhafi thanked him and other members of the team after the incident.

Reports last month noted that Mas'ud was kidnapped by a militia group in Libya, which led to speculation that the suspect was going to be handed over to U.S. authorities to stand trial. The suspect was serving a prison sentence five years ago over bomb-making charges.

Megrahi's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said that Mas'ud was actually in the custody of a warlord who was widely condemned for human rights abuses. He added that the circumstances in which such a confession was extracted would be "strongly opposed" in any U.S. or Scottish court, BBC reported.