The 1988 bombing of a PanAm 747 as it passed over the Scottish village of Lockerbie was one of the seminal acts of Islamic terrorism. All 259 people on board the airplane, and 11 on the ground, were murdered.
Until now, only one person, former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, has been charged and convicted in the attack. But now, 33 years after the event, a second defendant is in custody:
The Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is being detained in U.S. custody, law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic confirmed Sunday.
AP reports Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service released a statement outlining “the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is in U.S. custody.”
Whether, after all these years, he can be shown to be the man who made the bomb that killed 270 people remains to be seen. But the prosecution sends the message to terrorists that we will never stop looking for them. And it is gratifying that the Biden administration did not quash the prosecution on grounds of political correctness, as might have been expected.
STEVE adds: The curious thing here is that there are no details in the news reports on where or how Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was captured, or by whom. Usually someone in the national security apparatus will share this with reporters, even on background. I wonder if the Israelis, or an Arab country, might have something to do with al-Megrahi’s apprehension, and for that reason are keeping a lid on it.
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