Suspected Lockerbie bomb maker in custody – 34 years later Due to ethnic tensions: local elections in Kosovo postponed

34 years after the deadly attack in Lockerbie on a plane over Scotland, a Libyan man has been taken into US custody for allegedly building the bomb used at the time. A spokesman for the Scottish Public Prosecutor’s Office says the families of the victims have been informed, according to the PA news agency and the BBC on Sunday. Further details were initially unknown.

On December 21, 1988, terrorists blew up a Pan Am passenger jet en route from London to New York over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. 270 people died, including 11 local residents who were killed by falling debris.

The background to the terrorist attack has never been fully clarified. The British authorities believe that a Libyan terrorist commando committed the murder. Only one suspect, Libyan ex-secret service officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment for mass murder. However, in 2009 he was released in Scotland on health grounds and died in Tripoli in 2012. He had always maintained his innocence.

In 2020, the suspect, now in US custody, was charged with involvement in the attack by then US Attorney General William Barr, the PA said. At the time, he was said to have been in custody in Libya.

(yam/sda/dpa)