Lockerbie bombing suspect to make first court appearance on Monday in Washington

CNN

By Devan Cole, CNN

A Libyan man accused of being involved in making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in December 1988 is expected to make an initial court appearance Monday afternoon during an arraignment hearing in Washington, DC.

Authorities in the US and Scotland announced Sunday that the suspect, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, is now in US custody. The US charged Al-Marimi for his alleged involvement in the bombing two years ago, a spokesman for the UK Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service told CNN.

Al-Marimi is expected to be arraigned at 1 p.m. ET at a federal court in Washington.

He had been in custody in Libya for unrelated crimes when he was charged by the Justice Department two years ago.

The attack killed 270 people as the bomb detonated over the Scottish town as it flew from London to New York, and it remains the deadliest terrorist attack to have taken place in the United Kingdom.

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was accused along with Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah of placing explosives in a portable cassette and radio player that was inside a suitcase on the plane. Megrahi was sentenced in 2001 to 27 years in prison, but was released from prison after being diagnosed with cancer. He died in 2012. Fhimah was acquitted.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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CNN’s Gabby Gretener and Evan Perez contributed to this report.