Lockerbie bombing suspect makes first US court appearance

Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is the first defendant to appear in a US courtroom

The Libyan intelligence official accused of making the bomb that killed hundreds of people when it exploded on a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland more than 30 years ago made his first appearance in a US courtroom on Monday.

Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is one of three Libyan intelligence officials accused of participating in the plot that killed killed 259 people aboard the plane and 11 more on the ground, and his extradition and prosecution marks a milestone in the US investigation into one of the earliest major acts of international terrorism to affect the country.

Pan Am Flight 103 was heading to New York from London on December 21, 1988 when it exploded over Lockerbie. 190 American citizens were on board, including 35 Syracuse University students who were flying back to the US after spending a semester studying abroad. Citizens of 21 different countries were killed in the attack.

Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi (AP)

Former Attorney General William Barr first announced the charges against Mr Mas’ud two years ago, when he was still in Libyan custody. The charges stem from an alleged 2012 confession in which Mr Mas’ud supposedly told a government interviewer in Libya following the collapse of the Muammar al-Gaddafi government that he was responsible in part for the bombing and that it had been ordered by Mr Gaddafi himself.

The US obtained a copy of the interview in 2017, with Mr Barr announcing the charges at the tail end of his tenure at the Department of Justice. The US had previously filed criminal charges against two other Libyan officials who were, after a period of political wrangling, ultimately prosecuted in the Netherlands before a panel of Scottish judges.

Now, approaching the anniversary of the incident nearly three-and-a-half decades later, Mr Mas’ud is facing three charges including including destruction of an aircraft resulting in death. Federal officials have said they will not be pursuing the death penalty against Mr Mas’ud because the bombing happened before the charges he is facing carried a penalty of death.

It is not clear how he came to be extradited to the US. The Associated Press reported on Monday that Mr Mas’ud walked with a “halting gait” in his courtroom appearance and said that he wishes to be represented by his own laywers instead of court-appointed federal defenders.

A detention hearing, the next step in the court case, has been scheduled for later this month.