A Libyan suspected of having assembled and programmed the bomb for the Lockerbie bombing in Scotland, killing 270 people in December 1988, is being held by the United States, according to American authorities on Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice confirmed in an email sent to AFP the arrest and detention of Abu Agila Mohammad Massoud, previously revealed by the Scottish prosecution.
“He must appear before a court in the District of Columbia”, that is to say the capital Washington, said the spokesman, without giving a date.
No details were given on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Massoud’s arrest.
According to the New York Times, he was arrested by the federal police (FBI) and is being extradited to the United States.
“The families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have learned that the suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Massoud is being held by US authorities,” Scottish prosecutors said in a statement.
“The Scottish prosecution and the police, in coordination with the American government and American colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation with the sole aim of bringing to justice those who acted alongside al-Megrahi”, the only person convicted in this case, he added.
In their press release on Sunday, the families of the victims welcomed the arrest, speaking of an “important step” in their quest for justice and saying they “look forward to the trial”.
The attack targeted a transatlantic flight from London to New York. The aircraft, a Pan Am Boeing 747, exploded on December 21, 1988 over the Scottish village of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.
Only one person has been convicted for this attack: the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, who died in 2012. He had always maintained his innocence.
Released on August 20, 2009 by Scottish justice, due to terminal cancer, he received a triumphant welcome on his return to Tripoli, sparking controversy in Great Britain, accused of having acted to preserve an oil contract with Libya.
Gaddafi regime
In December 2020, 32 years after the tragedy, American justice announced that it would prosecute Abu Agila Mohammad Massoud, a former member of Muammar Gaddafi’s intelligence services and at the time detained in Libya, accusing him of having made the bomb.
The Lockerbie attack is the deadliest ever committed on the territory of the United Kingdom, but also the second deadliest against Americans (190 dead) after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s regime officially acknowledged responsibility for the 2003 Lockerbie bombing and paid $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the victims.
The investigation was relaunched in 2016, when American justice learned that Mr. Massoud had been arrested after the fall of the dictator and allegedly made a confession to the intelligence services of the new Libyan regime in 2012.
Last year, a Scottish court dismissed an appeal by al-Megrahi’s family, saying there was “no miscarriage of justice”.
Justice had also swept the defense of the family of the condemned, who believed that documents related to the case, which the British authorities refuse to declassify, would have made it possible to lead to a different verdict.
These documents would implicate Iran, in retaliation for an Iranian civilian plane shot down by an American missile in July 1988, killing 290 people.
The al-Megrahi family’s lawyer, Aamer Anwar, for his part, denounced once again, in a press release, a “miscarriage of justice” targeting his client and said “to examine what these developments mean in terms of a new appeal potential “.