Militia held Lockerbie suspect before handover
Officials say it all began with Mas’ud nabbed from home
CAIRO — Around midnight in mid-November, Libyan militiamen in two Toyota pickup trucks arrived at a residential building in a neighborhood of Tripoli. They stormed the house, bringing out a blindfolded man in his 70s.
Their target was former Libyan intelligence agent Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, wanted by the U.S. for allegedly making the bomb that brought down New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, just days before Christmas in 1988. The attack killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground.
Weeks after that night raid, the U.S. announced Mas’ud was in its custody, to the surprise of many in Libya, which has been split between two governments.
Four Libyan security and government officials with direct knowledge of the operation recounted the journey.
The officials said it started with him being taken from his home in Tripoli. He was transferred to Misrata and eventually handed over to American agents who flew him out of the country, they said.
The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In Libya, many questioned the legality of how he was picked up, just months after his release from a Libyan prison, and sent to the U.S.. Libya and the U.S. don’t have a standing agreement on extradition, so there was no obligation to hand Mas’ud over.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that Mas’ud’s transfer was lawful and described it as a culmination of years of cooperation with Libyan authorities.
Libya’s chief prosecutor has opened an investigation following a complaint from Mas’ud’s family. But for nearly a week after the U.S. announcement, the Tripoli government was silent.
After public outcry in Libya, the country’s Tripoli-based prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, acknowledged on Thursday that his government had handed Mas’ud over. He also said Interpol had issued a warrant for Mas’ud’s arrest. A spokesman for Dbeibah’s government did not answer messages seeking comment.
On Dec. 12, the U.S. Department of Justice said that it had requested that Interpol issue a warrant for him.
After the killing of longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in a 2011 civil war, Mas’ud, an explosives expert for Libya’s intelligence service, was detained by a militia in western Libya. He served 10 years in prison in Tripoli for crimes related to his position during Gadhafi’s rule.
He was released in June after completing his sentence and was under permanent surveillance, a military official said.
The neighborhood is controlled by the Stabilization Support Authority, an umbrella of militias led by warlord Abdel-Ghani al-Kikli, a close ally of Dbeibah.
After Mas’ud’s release from prison, the Biden administration intensified extradition demands, Libyan officials said.
At first, the Dbeibah government was reluctant, citing concerns of political and legal repercussions, said an official at the prime minister’s office.
The official said U.S. officials continued to raise the issue with the Tripolibased government and with warlords they were dealing with in the fight against Islamic militants in Libya.
With pressure mounting, the prime minister and his aides decided in October to hand over Mas’ud to American authorities, the official said.
Dbeibah’s mandate remains highly contested after planned elections failed to happen last year.
“It fits into a broader campaign being conducted by Dbeibah, which basically consists of giving gifts to influential states,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He said Dbeibah needs to curry favor to help him remain in power.
More than a decade after the death of Gadhafi, Libya remains chaotic and lawless, with militias still holding sway over large territories. The country’s security forces are weak, compared to local militias, with which the Dbeibah government is allied to varying degrees. To carry out the arrest of Mas’ud, the Dbeibah government called on al-Kikli, who also holds a formal position in the government.
The prime minister discussed the Mas’ud case in a meeting in early November with al-Kikli, according to an employee of the Stabilization Support Authority. After the meeting, Dbeibah informed U.S. officials that the handover would take place within weeks in Misrata, where his family is influential, a government official said.
Then came the raid in mid-November. Militiamen rushed into Mas’ud’s bedroom and seized him, transporting him blindfolded to a detention center run by the SSA in Tripoli. He was there for two weeks before he was given to another militia in Misrata, reports directly the Dbeibah.
In Misrata, Mas’ud was interrogated by Libyan officers in the presence of U.S. intelligence officers, said a Libyan official briefed on the interrogation. Mas’ud declined to answer questions about his alleged role in the Lockerbie attack.