Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist Suspect in Custody for 1988 Bombing

United States -- December 14, 2022: On Monday, the FBI reported 71-year-old Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi (Mas'ud), of Tunisia and Libya, made his initial court

appearance on federal charges,  unsealed in connection with the Dec. 21, 1988, civilian aircraft bombing that claimed 270 lives. 190 Americans, 43 Britons, including 11 who were on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, and citizens of the following nations were among the deceased: Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago.

The Department of Justice made a criminal complaint against Mas'ud public on December 21, 2020, charging him with killing someone while destroying an airplane and killing someone while using explosives to destroy a vehicle utilized in international trade. As is customary in cases involving foreign fugitives, the United States then asked for the publication of an INTERPOL Red Notice, which asked all INTERPOL member nations to find and apprehend the defendant in order to secure his extradition or lawful return to the country in order to face the charges. Mas'ud was formally charged on Nov. 29, 2022, by a federal grand jury with the identical offenses listed in the criminal complaint. Today, that indictment's seal was broken.

The US and Scotland have worked together to seek justice for every victim of the Pan Am 103 bombing since the horrific events in 1988 till the present. The collaboration will endure till Mas'ud is tried in court.
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21 December 1988

38 minutes after takeoff, at 7:03 p.m. (GMT), on December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was nearly instantly destroyed when a bomb in the forward cargo room exploded. At 31,000 feet, the aircraft was flying above Lockerbie, Scotland. It had left London-Heathrow and was flying to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

21 nationals from various nations perished. 35 Syracuse University students who were coming home for the holidays after spending a semester studying abroad were among the 190 Americans who perished. Eleven Lockerbie, Scotland citizens perished on the ground as flaming pieces of the aircraft's falling debris completely destroyed a city block's worth of residences, making up 11 of the 43 deaths from the United Kingdom. The international terrorist assault, which was organized and carried out by Libyan intelligence agents, was regarded as the biggest at the time in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, two Libyan intelligence agents, were charged with crimes in both Scotland and the United States in November 1991 as a result of the cooperative investigation that Scottish and American law enforcement conducted immediately after the catastrophe. They were put on trial in the Netherlands before a Scottish court. Fhimah received acquittal. Megrahi was convicted.

Pan Am Flight 103's bombing was planned and carried out.

According to the criminal complaint filed in December 2020, Mas'ud served in a variety of capacities, including as a technical expert in the construction of explosive devices, for the External Security Organization (ESO), the Libyan intelligence service that carried out terrorist acts against other countries, from roughly 1973 to 2011. A Libyan intelligence official instructed Mas'ud to travel to Malta in the winter of 1988 with a prepared luggage. Megrahi and Fhimah received him at the airport when he arrived. A few days later, Megrahi and Fhimah gave Mas'ud the order to set the suitcase's timer for the following morning so that the explosion would take place exactly eleven hours from that moment. On the morning of December 21, 1988, Megrahi and Fhimah were both at the airport, and Mas'ud transferred the luggage to Fhimah after receiving permission from Fhimah. The suitcase was then put on the conveyer belt by Fhimah. Mas'ud then hopped on a Libyan flight to Tripoli that was set to take departure at 9:00 a.m.

The lawsuit claims that Mas'ud and Megrahi met with a top Libyan intelligence official three or four days after arriving back home, who commended them for a successful operation. Three months later, Mas'ud and Fhimah met with Muammar Qaddafi, who at the time was the leader of Libya. Qaddafi commended them for carrying out a crucial national duty against the Americans and said the operation had been a complete success.

Mas'ud might receive the maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty. After taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other legal considerations, a federal district court judge will decide on any sentence.

Together with prosecutors from the National Security Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division, the FBI's Washington Field Office is looking into the case. The U.S. National Central Bureau and the Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department both contributed significantly to this case.

The Department of Justice can be reached by the victims of this crime and their families at 1-866-DOJ-4YOU (1-866-365-4968) (TDD/TTY: 1-866-228-4619) or the VNS Call Center (International: 1-502-213-2767).

All defendants are deemed innocent until and until they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, and an indictment is only an allegation.

WNCTIMES by Marjorie Farrinton