Lockerbie bombing suspect now in US custody, authorities say

A Libyan suspected of making the bomb that detonated an airliner over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 is being held by the Americans, US and Scottish authorities announced on Sunday.

“The United States has arrested suspected Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi,” a Justice Department spokesperson told NBC News. “He is expected to make his first appearance in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”

In a separate statement, Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said the families of the victims had been told he was in US custody.

Pan Am Flight 103, traveling from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 people, including 189 Americans, aboard the plane and 11 others on the ground. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil.

The plane exploded 31,000ft above ground just 38 minutes after takeoff and crashed in Lockerbie, a small town in south-west Scotland around 80 miles south of the capital Edinburgh.