The United States Attorney General, William Barr, announced this Monday the indictment of a former Libyan secret services agent for the bomb attack perpetrated against an American plane that fell on the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. All 259 occupants died. of the aircraft and eleven people on the ground. Among the victims is a Spanish member of the crew.
So far only one individual has been convicted of this attack, Libyan Abdel Basset al Megrahi, sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2001 in a Scottish court. Al Megrahi was released in 2009 from terminal cancer and died in 2012. Barr has now brought charges against Abu Agila Masud, allegedly responsible for making the bomb.
Precisely this Monday marks the 32nd anniversary of the attack on the Pan Am Boeing 747 that covered a route between London and New York. Most of the deceased were US citizens.
Barr has already announced that he is leaving office, but asked the outgoing president, Donald Trump, to remain in office for another week precisely to announce this new process for the Lockerbie attack.
In his first term as attorney general, with President George HW Bush, Barr has already initiated the process against two Libyan agents, Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah – finally acquitted – for placing the explosive camouflaged inside a radio cassette player inside a suitcase to be loaded on the plane.
Sources close to Barr cited by CNN have explained that the objective is to obtain the extradition of Masud with the intention of trying him in Washington.
