On Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was in the skies over Lockerbie, a village in southwestern Scotland, when a bomb detonated, sending the plane crashing to the ground and killing all 259 on board, as well as 11 residents of Lockerbie. It remains the deadliest terror attack to have taken place in the UK.
Of those who died in the bombing, 190 were Americans, making Flight 103 the second-deadliest attack on Americans. American authorities haven’t stopped searching for those responsible, and NPR reports that the U.S. has apprehended the man they believe was responsible for making the bomb.
“The United States has taken custody of alleged Pan Am flight 103 bombmaker Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi,” a statement from the Department of Justice read.
Scottish authorities have notified the families of local victims as well.
“Scottish prosecutors and police, working with UK Government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with [fellow Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Basset Ali] Al Megrahi to justice,” read a statement from Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
The arrival of Mas’ud in U.S. custody is the result of three decades of investigative work involving interviews with over 10,000 individuals and a crime scene of roughly 845 square miles.
“More than 5,000 responders, including investigators from the FBI and Scottish authorities, combed the countryside for clues,” the FBI reports on its history site. “They recovered 319 tons of wreckage and thousands of pieces of evidence.”
“In the debris, investigators found a tiny fragment that helped establish that the bomb had been placed inside a radio in a piece of luggage aboard Pan Am 103,” the report continues. “Another small fragment, found embedded in a piece of shirt, helped identify the explosive timer. This evidence led to two Libyan intelligence operatives.”
Those efforts culminated in Libyan officials apprehending Mas’ud in 2020. As Libyan authorities questioned him, Mas’ud admitted to building the bomb. Shortly after that, the U.S. charged him with the destruction of an aircraft resulting in death and the destruction of a vehicle by means of an explosive resulting in death.
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The U.S. asserts that Mas’ud was working on orders of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Officials dispatched Mas’ud to Malta with a bomb packed in a suitcase along with orders to set the bomb’s timer to detonate 11 hours later. Another Libyan operative placed the suitcase on the conveyor belt at the airport. Later, Gaddafi reportedly thanked Mas’ud and two other Libyan intelligence agents, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, for following through with the operation.
“This means so much to the families, so much to my family, so much to me to know that justice for my brother, for the 269 other victims is going to be served in our country under our laws,” said Kara Weipz, sister of Richard Monetti, who was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, according to NPR.
Courts in Scotland tried Fhimah and Megrahi in 2001, acquitting the former and sentencing the latter to life in prison. Eight years later, the government of Scotland sent Megrahi back to Libya after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a move that stirred up controversy.
Mas’ud should make an initial court appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia soon.
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