The United States confirmed on Sunday that it was holding a Libyan suspected of manufacturing the bomb used to blow up a US plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing 270, as the Libyan National Security Council expressed its astonishment at Abu Ageila’s trial in America against the backdrop of the Lockerbie attack, noting that Washington pledged in 2008 to end any claims related to the Lockerbie attack.
A Justice Ministry spokesman said in a statement that Abu Ageila Muhammad Masoud has been arrested and “will appear” before a judge in Washington, DC, without specifying the date of the appearance.
And the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) sued Scottish authorities on Sunday that the man accused of manufacturing the bomb that blew up Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 is now being held in the United States.
The BBC added that the defendant Massoud He is being held in the United States, which reported him two years ago.
Masoud, accused of masterminding the Lockerbie bombing, was kidnapped in Libya last month and his fate remained unknown until his US detention was announced.
And Western media reported on Sunday that “the United States has informed the families of the victims of Lockerbie that it has arrested the perpetrator of the bombing.”
Last November, Masoud’s family said they did not know his whereabouts or fate, days after his abduction.
And the family said in a statement that gunmen in civilian clothes driving two Toyota cars broke into their home in the Abu Salim area of the capital, Tripoli, at 1:30 a.m. on November 16, 2022, and kidnapped Masoud and took him away. to an unknown destination after assaulting him.
Abu Ageila Masoud
Interestingly, Masoud is an intelligence officer during the former regime era, and was convicted of charges related to the fatal crash that killed 270 people, including 190 Americans, during a flight between London and New York.
In late 2020 he was charged in the United States with “involvement in the design and manufacture of the bomb” that crashed the plane over the “Lockerbie” area, and with committing terrorism-related offences.
Opponents of the unity government, Abdel Hamid al-Dabiba, accuse his loyal militias of being behind the kidnapping of Masoud and handing him over to Washington for trial on its territory, as part of a political deal to stay in power.
However, the Justice Ministry of Dabaiba’s government has confirmed that the Lockerbie case file has been completely closed, politically and legally, according to an agreement between Libya and Washington and an earlier decree issued by former US President George Bush in 2008 .
Megahi
In 1991, two other Libyan intelligence agents were indicted for the bombing: Abd al-Basit Ali al-Megrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fahima.
Al-Megrahi was convicted of carrying out the bombing and sentenced to life in prison in 2001. He was later released due to cancer and died in 2012.
Fhimah was acquitted of all charges, but Scottish prosecutors argued al-Megrahi did not act alone.
