LIBYA
A Relentless Quest
US federal prosecutors filed charges this week against another suspect related to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, the majority of them Americans, USA Today reported.
Former Libyan intelligence officer Abu Agila Mohammad Masud was accused of helping make the bomb that exploded aboard the Boeing 747 while it was flying over the small Scottish town en route from London to New York.
Masud was long believed to be a co-conspirator in the attack but evidence of his involvement only emerged in 2012 following the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.
Libyan authorities then interrogated Masud and later provided US authorities with a copy of the interview, as well as evidence allegedly linking him to the making of the bomb.
US officials believe Masud was also involved in the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle Discotheque in Berlin, West Germany, which killed two American servicemen and one Turkish woman.
Masud remains in Libyan custody pending a US extradition request to face terror charges.
The development adds a new chapter to one of the world’s longest and most extensive terrorism investigations, which pursued dozens of leads and interviewed thousands of people.
In 2001, Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi became the only person to be convicted in relation to the attack. While serving his sentence, Scottish authorities released him in 2009 on humanitarian grounds after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
He died in 2012 in Tripoli, Libya, at the age of 60.
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