LONDON/WASHINGTON, Dec 11: A Libyan accused of making the explosives that brought down the Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie 34 years ago is now in US custody, Scottish and US officials confirmed today.
The United States had brought charges against Abu Agila Massoud two years earlier, alleging that he played a key role in the December 21, 1988, explosion.
The explosion on a Boeing 747 that was en route to London-New York when the plane was flying over the aforementioned Scottish town, killing 270 people, was the deadliest terrorist incident to occur on British soil.
All 259 passengers and crew members on board, along with 11 others, died after the wreckage hit Lockerbie.
Abu Agila Massoud is considered the “third conspirator” after the plane crash.
A spokesman for the Scottish Prosecution Service said today: “The families of those killed in the Lockerbie explosion have said that suspect Abu Agila Mohammed Massoud Kheir al-Marimi remains in US custody.”
The same source said that “Scottish prosecutors and police, along with the British government and US partners, will continue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who collaborated with al-Magrahi to justice.”
A US Justice Department spokesman told US media without giving a date that Masood is scheduled to appear in the District of Columbia District Court on two criminal charges related to the blast.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a former agent of the Libyan secret services, has already been convicted of mass murder in 2001.
