Lockerbie bombing suspect taken into US custody more than 40 years after Pan Am Flight 103 explosion killed 270 people
PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
- A Libyan accused of building the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 is in US custody.
- All 243 passengers and 16 crew on board died, including 190 Americans, in the 1988 incident.
- Eleven people in the Scottish town of Lockerbie were also killed when the plane crashed.
A Libyan man accused of building the bomb that exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 has been taken into US custody, Scottish authorities said.
In a statement to Insider, the Scottish Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service confirmed that "The families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi ("Mas'ud" or "Masoud") is in US custody."
The US announced charges against Mas'ud in 2020. All 243 passengers and 16 crew on board the flight, including 190 Americans, were killed when the Boeing 747 exploded. Eleven people in the Scottish town of Lockerbie also died from debris that struck the ground.
The plane was flying from Frankfurt, Germany, to Detroit via London and New York, with the bomb exploding shortly after the plane took off from London's Heathrow Airport.
In 2020, Mas'ud was in an Iranian jail for unrelated charges, according to the New York Times.
The BBC reports that Mas'ud was kidnapped by a militia group in Libya, leading to speculation that he could be handed to US authorities to stand trial for his alleged crimes.
Documentary maker Ken Dornstein — whose brother died in the bombing — told the New York Times, "If there's one person still alive who could tell the story of the bombing of Flight 103, and put to rest decades of unanswered question about how exactly it was carried out — and why — it's Mr. Mas'ud."
He added, "The question, I guess, is whether he's finally prepared to speak."
The only person convicted of the Pan Am 103 bombing is Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines. He stood trial at a specially-convened Scottish court in the Netherlands in 2001 and was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of 270 counts of murder.
Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government in 2009 after being diagnosed with cancer.
In 2003, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the bombing and paid compensation to the families of the victims but denied that he had ordered the attack.