The Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is being detained in U.S. custody, law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic confirmed Sunday.
AP reports Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service released a statement outlining “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.”
The December, 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town killed 259 people aboard the plane and 11 on the ground. Many of the victims were American.
The U.S. Justice Department also offered a confirmation of its own regarding Mas’ud and his links to one of the most high-profile aviation terrorist attacks in modern history.
File/December 1988: Some of the destruction caused by Pan Am Flight 103 after it crashed onto the town of Lockerbie in Scotland, on 21st December 1988. The Boeing 747 ‘Clipper Maid of the Seas’ was destroyed en route from Heathrow to JFK Airport in New York, when a bomb was detonated in its forward cargo hold. All 259 people on board were killed, as well as 11 people in the town of Lockerbie. (Bryn Colton/Getty Images)
It added the suspect “is expected to make his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”
No information on just how Mas’ud came to be in U.S. custody was made available.
The U.S. Justice Department announced new charges against Mas’ud in December 2020, on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing, as Breitbart News reported.
Flight 103 originated in Frankfurt, Germany, with a Boeing 727 but switched to a 747 at London’s Heathrow Airport, where it picked up more passengers, many carrying Christmas presents. Its final destination was Detroit.
File/Picture dated 21 December 1988 showing two British policemen walking past the wreck of the ill-fated US-bound Pam Am Boeing747 which blew over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including 11 on the ground. (ROY LETKEY/AFP via Getty Images)
File/The Queen lays a wreath in memory of those lost aboard Pan Am flight 103 (Chris Bacon – PA Images/PA Images via Getty)
In 2001, former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted for his part in downing the flight.
He remains the only person convicted over the attack. He lost one appeal and abandoned another before being freed in 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was terminally ill with cancer.
He died in Libya in 2012, still protesting his innocence as his family maintains they will continue to fight to clear his name, as Breitbart News reported.