Suspect in UK’s deadliest bombing is in US custody

A Libyan man accused of being involved in making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in December 1988 is now in US custody, US and Scottish officials said on Sunday.

The US has charged Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi with his alleged involvement in the attack two years ago, a spokesman for the Crown Office and the UK Tax Prosecutor told CNN.

The attack killed 270 people when the bomb detonated over the Scottish town as it flew from London to New York.

The US Department of Justice released a statement this morning (11), confirming that the US “has taken custody of the alleged bomb maker of Pan Am Flight 103” Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, saying that he is due to make his “initial appearance in the US District Court for the District of Columbia,” according to a spokesperson.

The statement did not identify a specific date for his appearance in court, but said more details would be released.

The UK official told CNN that “the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been informed that the suspect “Mas’ud” or “Masoud” is in US custody.

“Scottish prosecutors and police, working with the UK government and US counterparts, will continue to investigate, with the sole aim of bringing to justice those who acted alongside Al Megrahi.”

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was accused along with Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah of placing explosives in a portable cassette tape and a radio that were inside a suitcase on the plane. Megrahi was sentenced in 2001 to 27 years in prison, but was released after being diagnosed with cancer. He died in 2012. Fhimah was acquitted.

The Lockerbie bombing remains the deadliest terrorist attack to have taken place in the UK. It killed 259 people aboard the plane, along with 11 on the ground.