By Steve Neavling
The FBI arrested a Libyan intelligence operative accused of making the bomb that destroyed an American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud is being extradited to the U.S., where he will be prosecuted for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history, The New York Times reports.
The Justice Department had been pursuing Mas’ud for decades, and in 2020, Attorney General William Barr announced criminal charges against him. At the time of the charges, he was being held at a Libyan prison for unrelated crimes.
The bomb he’s accused of building destroyed Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 passengers, including 190 Americans.
The Boeing 747 was en route to New York from London when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. The bomb was hidden inside a cassette player stored in a suitcase.
The Libyan government accepted responsibility and paid nearly $3 billion to the victims’ families.
