Lockerbie bombing suspect is now in U.S. custody, authorities say

A Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that blew up a passenger plane over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, is in American custody, authorities in the U.S. and Scotland said Sunday.

“The United States has taken custody of alleged Pan Am flight 103 bombmaker Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi,” a Department of Justice spokesperson told NBC News. “He is expected to make his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”

In a separate statement Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said that the victims’ families had been told that he was in American custody.

Pan Am flight 103, traveling from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people, including 189 Americans, on board the plane and another 11 on the ground. It remains the deadliest terror attack on British soil.

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The plane exploded at 31,000 feet above ground, just 38 minutes after takeoff and crashed in Lockerbie, a small town in southwest Scotland around 80 miles south of the capital Edinburgh.