Suspected Lockerbie bomber in US custody: Scotland

A Libyan man accused of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 is in custody in the United States, Scottish prosecutors have said.

Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said on Sunday that Abu Agila Mohammad Masud was now in custody. The United States had announced charges against Masud two years ago.

"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 the COPFS said.

The COPFS said it would be inappropriate to comment further on a live criminal investigation. The BBC first reported Masud's arrest.

The bomb on board the Boeing 747 en route to New York from London on December 21, 1988 killed all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground, the deadliest-ever militant attack in Britain.

Masud had previously been held in Libya for his alleged involvement in a 1986 attack on a Berlin nightclub.

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Pursing justice 

In 1991, two other Libyan intelligence operatives were charged in the bombing: Abdel Baset Ali al Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.

Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing, and was jailed for life in 2001. He was later released because he was suffering from cancer, and died in 2012.

Fhimah was acquitted of all charges, but Scottish prosecutors have maintained that Megrahi did not act alone.

In 2020 the United States unsealed criminal charges against Masud, a suspected third conspirator, adding he had worked as a technical expert in building explosive devices.

"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," a spokesperson for the COPFS said.

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