The announcement that a Libyan man suspected in the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet was taken into U.S. custody has put the spotlight back on the terrorist attack that killed 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground. Here’s a look back at the tragedy.
Investigators soon tied the bombing to Libya, whose government had engaged in long-running hostilities with the U.S. and other Western governments. About two years before the attack, Libya was blamed for the bombing of a Berlin disco that killed three, including two U.S. soldiers, and injured dozens of others.In 1991, the U.S. charged two Libyan intelligence officers with planting the bomb aboard the jet. But the country’s leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, refused to turn them over.
One of the men, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted and given a life sentence. The other, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty. Scottish officials released Al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds in 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He died in Libya in 2012. The families of those killed, meanwhile, brought suit against the Libyan government, demanding they be held accountable. In 2003, Libya agreed to a settlement, formally accepting responsibility for the bombing, renouncing terrorism and paying compensation to the families.Despite a rapprochement with the U.S. government, the pursuit of others responsible for the bombing largely stalled, until after Ghadafi was ousted from power in 2011.
In that interview, U.S. officials said, Masud admitted to building the bomb used in the Pan Am attack and working with the two men charged earlier to plant it on the plane. He said the operation had been ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Ghadafi had thanked him and others after the attack, according to an FBI affidavit.In late 2020, the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against Masud. With Masud in Libyan custody, though, his prosecution remained largely theoretical. U.S.
It was not clear Sunday how Masud was taken into U.S. custody. He would be the first to appear in an American courtroom for prosecution of the attack.
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