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Law and Justice

US charges Libyan over 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing

December 21, 2020

The announcement came on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. If the suspect can be extradited, the trial will close the book on an investigation that started decades ago.

https://p.dw.com/p/3n1Kx
Reconstruction of Pan Am flight 103 in at a forensics warehouse in Farnborough, England in 2008
For decades the US Department of Justice has doggedly pursued those behind a bombing that killed 190 of its citizens Image: Getty Images

US Attorney General William Barr on Monday announced that the US had unsealed criminal charges against a Libyan intelligence officer for his involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack killed 270 people, 190 of them Americans, when a suitcase bomb was detonated while the plane was en route from London to New York.  

The accused, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, is reported to be in Libyan custody and the US intends to have him extradited for trial on two criminal counts.

In making the announcement, Barr noted that Mas'ud, who is accused of building the Lockerbie bomb, was also involved in the 1986 bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in then-West Germany. That incident killed two US soldiers and a Turkish woman.

Full circle for attorney general

Barr announced the charges on the 32nd anniversary of the Pan Am bombing  and days before he will step down as attorney general. When he first served in that position under President George H.W. Bush, he instructed Robert Mueller, then head of the Department of Justice's criminal division, to begin what would become a decades-long investigation.

In 1991, when Barr announced the first charges brought in the case, he said: "This investigation is by no means over. It continues unabated. We will not rest until all those responsible are brought to justice."

Two men were previously charged and put on trial in the Netherlands for their involvement in the deadly explosion. One, former Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was convicted and given a life sentence, though he was released in 2009 on humanitarian grounds due to a terminal cancer diagnosis. He died in Tripoli. The other man was acquitted of the charges.

Barr reflected on the history of the investigation before thanking FBI agents and the US Attorney's Office for their hard work and emphasizing that it was with "profound gratitude that I recognize and thank our law enforcement friends in Scotland for their nearly 32-year partnership with us on this case."

"Let there be no mistake: No amount of time or distance will stop the United States, and its partners in Scotland, from pursuing justice in this case," said Barr.

js/sms (AP, Reuters)