Libya ‘WAS involved in extradition of suspected Lockerbie bombmaker’, PM claims

One of Libya’s rival prime ministers has admitted that his government was involved in the extradition to the United States of a man accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all on board.

US authorities announced that they had arrested former intelligence officer Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi on Sunday.

The next day, Mas’ud appeared in federal court in Washington and was charged with an act of international terrorism.

US officials did not explain how he was brought into their custody.

The artist’s sketch shows Assistant US Attorney Erik Kenerson, front left, watching as Whitney Minter, a public defender for the Eastern Division of Virginia, represents Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, accused of fabricating the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, in federal court in Washington, Monday, December 12, 2022

Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah (pictured) said his government was involved in Mas’ud’s extradition.

In a televised broadcast Thursday night, Libyan Prime Minister Hamid Dbeibah said Mas’ud’s extradition was legal and his government was simply cooperating with an “international judicial framework to extradite accused citizens.” It was his first comment about his extradition.

In a 20-minute speech, Dbeibah claimed Mas’ud was the bombmaker behind the Lockerbie attack that killed 270 people and said Libya “had to wipe the mark of terrorism from the forehead of the Libyan people.”

He did not provide hard evidence for any of his allegations and did not elaborate on his government’s role in handing over Mas’ud.

The United States and Libya do not have a formal extradition agreement. Dbeibah’s comments came a day after Libya’s chief prosecutor, Saddiq Al-Sour, announced that there would be an investigation into Mas’ud’s extradition following a complaint from the suspect’s family.

The Tripoli-based prosecutor did not provide details about the investigation.

In this file photo taken on December 22, 1988, a police officer walks away from the damaged cockpit of the 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland with 259 passengers on board.

Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, also known as Mohammed Abouajela Masud, accused of making the bomb that detonated Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, is shown listening in this courtroom sketch, December 2022

Mas’ud was “abducted” from his family’s home in Tripoli by armed men in November, according to a statement issued by his family shortly after the alleged incident.

It was not clear if anyone in the family witnessed Mas’ud’s alleged abduction. In that statement, the family condemned the Libyan authorities for their silence on the incident and for any extradition proceedings that might follow.

Engulfed by more than a decade of civil conflict, Libya is torn between the Dbeibah government in Tripoli and a rival government based in eastern Libya headed by Prime Minister Fathi Bashagha.

In western Libya, militant groups have amassed great wealth and power from kidnappings and their control over the country’s lucrative people-smuggling.

On Tuesday, Bashagha called Mas’ud’s extradition illegal and called for his immediate release.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi (CL), a freed Lockerbie attacker, arrives with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam (CR), in Tripoli late on August 20, 2009.

Undated file photo issued by the Crown Office of the late Lockerbie attacker Abdelbaset al-Megrahi

Mas’ud’s extradition has added to discontent among Libyans, long frustrated by years of chaos and division.

In Facebook videos posted on Thursday, people in Tripoli were seen carrying signs blaming Dbeibah and his allied militias for Masud’s extradition. In statements issued on Thursday, two of Libya’s influential tribal groups also condemned the move.

The New York-bound Pan Am flight exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie after taking off from London on December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 others on the ground.

Some 190 US citizens were on the New York-bound flight. A breakthrough in the longstanding investigation came in 2017 when the US Department of Justice acquired a copy of an interview that Mas’ud, a former explosives expert with Libyan intelligence services, gave to security forces. order of the North African country in 2012.

He was then in custody after the fall of the decades-long government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

In the interview, Mas’ud admitted to building the bomb used in the Pan Am attack, US officials said.

According to an FBI affidavit, Mas’ud said the attack was ordered by Gaddafi’s intelligence services.

Mas’ud is the third Libyan intelligence official charged in the United States in connection with the Lockerbie attack. He is the first to appear in an American court.