A Libyan guy suspected of being concerned within the Lockerbie bombing has been taken into custody within the United States, Scottish government mentioned on Sunday.
He is accused of creating the bomb that blew up the Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland in December 1988, killing 270 folks.
“The families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Massoud is in custody in the United States,” Scottish prosecutors mentioned in a remark.
“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 Al Megrahi to justice,” it added.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, additionally Libyan, is the one one that has been convicted in reference to the assault, probably the most fatal act of terrorism in British historical past.
Megrahi used to be jailed for existence however used to be launched on compassionate grounds through the Scottish govt in 2009 after being recognized with most cancers.
He died in Libya in 2012.
The assault focused a transatlantic flight from London to New York.
The plane, a Pan Am Boeing 747, exploded on 21 December 1988 over the Scottish village of Lockerbie.
All 259 passengers and group on board the aircraft have been killed, in conjunction with 11 folks at the flooring through wreckage hitting their houses.
In December 2020, the United States introduced that it could prosecute Massoud, a former member of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s intelligence services and products. He used to be in Libya on the time.
It isn’t identified when and beneath what stipulations Massoud used to be passed over to the United States.
Last month it used to be reported that Massoud have been abducted through a militant workforce in Libya, fuelling hypothesis that may be given to the Americans to face trial.
The Lockerbie bombing is the deadliest ever terrorist assault dedicated on UK soil but additionally the second one deadliest towards US voters, after the assaults of September 11, 2001.
190 Americans died within the explosion.
Gaddafi’s regime formally stated duty for the Lockerbie bombing in 2003, paying 2.7 billion euros in repayment to the sufferers’ households.
The investigation used to be relaunched in 2016 when the United States discovered that Massoud have been arrested after the autumn of Gaddafi.
He allegedly confessed to the intelligence services and products of the brand new Libyan regime in 2012.
Five years in the past Massoud used to be serving a jail sentence in Libya
