Libya: ministry rejects calls to reopen Lockerbie bombing case

The Ministry of Justice of Libya’s Government of National Unity said on Sunday that the Lockerbie bombing case has been “completely closed from a political and legal point of view under an agreement reached between the US and Libya in 2008.”

A bomb on board Pan-Am flight 103 killed all 259 people on board as it flew over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988. Another eleven people were killed on the ground by falling wreckage.

The ministry issued its statement in the wake of reports on social media about the “kidnapping” of former intelligence officer Abu Agila Masud from his home in Tripoli. According to US reports two years ago he was responsible for making the bomb used to bring down the aircraft.

The statement noted that the agreement was ratified by Presidential Order No. 13477 signed by former US President George W. Bush in October 2008. As such, the issue cannot be raised again.

Libyan citizen Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing on 31 January, 2001, which prompted Muammar Gaddafi’s regime to agree to a settlement in 2008 and pay more than $2 billion to the families of the victims to close the case.

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