New charges filed in Lockerbie bombing

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department announced new charges Monday against a Libyan bombmaker in the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, an attack that killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground.

The charges were announced on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing and in the final news conference of Attorney General William Barr’s tenure, underscoring his personal attachment to a case that unfolded during his first stint at the Justice Department nearly 30 years ago.

The case against the alleged bombmaker, Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, is for now more theoretical than practical since Masud is not in U.S. custody and it is unclear if he ever will be, or if the evidence will be sufficient for conviction.

“At long last, this man responsible for killing Americans and many others will be subject to justice for his crimes,” Barr said.

In 2017, U.S. officials received a copy of an interview that Masud, a longtime explosives expert for Libya’s intelligence service, had given to Libyan law enforcement in 2012 in which he admitted building the bomb in the Pan Am attack and working with two other conspirators to carry it out and said the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence.

Two other men, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were tried in a Netherlands court. Al-Megrahi was convicted while Fhimah was acquitted. Al-Megrahi was given a life sentence, but Scottish authorities released him on humanitarian grounds in 2009 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He later died in Tripoli.