Two Libyans Identified As Lockerbie Suspects
Adetokunbo Fakeye with agency reports
Two Libyans have been identified as suspects in the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people in 1988, Sky News has reported.
According to the report, on Thursday, investigators in Scotland and the US believe the pair were involved in the attack along with Abdelbaset al Megrahi, who died in 2012.
The Libyan intelligence agent was the only person convicted over the bombing of flight Pan Am 103, but police have always maintained others were involved.
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Scottish officers and FBI agents want to travel to Tripoli to interview the two men, whose names have not been released.
Sky News understands the pair are Abu Agila Masud and Abdullah al Senussi.
Masud is reportedly serving a ten-year sentence in Libya for bomb-making, while al Senussi is Colonel Gaddafi’s brother-in-law and spy chief, and is in jail awaiting execution.
The potential breakthrough came after Scotland’s Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC recently met US Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Washington to review progress in the case.
A Crown Office spokesman said they agreed there is “proper basis” in Scottish and US law to “treat two Libyans as suspects” in the attack.
“The Lord Advocate has today(Thursday), therefore, issued an International Letter of Request to the Libyan attorney general in Tripoli which identifies the two Libyans as suspects in the bombing of flight Pan Am 103,” he said.
He added, “The Lord Advocate and the US Attorney General are seeking the assistance of the Libyan judicial authorities for Scottish police officers and the FBI to interview the two named suspects in Tripoli.”
The Boeing 747 had just taken off from London to New York City on December 21 when a suitcase bomb exploded, killing everyone on board.
Another 11 people were killed on the ground as the aircraft exploded in the sky over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Al Megrahi was jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years in 2001 after being found guilty of mass murder.
He was released from jail by the Scottish Government in 2009 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and died in Libya three years later.
His role in the attack has been called into question in a series of books, documentaries and testimony to Scottish Parliament.
His supporters have called his conviction “the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history”.
(Yorkshire Coast Radio News contributed to the report)