Former US Attorney General William Barr said the Lockerbie bombing suspect should be given the death penalty.
Barr was the U.S. Attorney General on December 21, 2020, when he announced the charges against Abu Agila Mohammed Masoud Khair Al-Marimi. This date marks the 32nd anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board. 11 on the plane and on the ground.
In this photo provided by the Alexandria, Va., Sheriff’s Office, Alexandria, Dec. 12, 2022, in Alexandria, Va.
(Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via AP)
The Justice Department announced on Sunday that Masoud had been arrested by the US. Massoud appeared in federal court on Monday charged with an act of international terrorism.
FILE – Unidentified crash investigators examine the nose of the crashed Pan Am Flight 103 Boeing 747 in Lockerbie, Scotland, December 23, 1988. A man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 is in US custody.
(AP Photo/Dave Caulkin, File)
Two other Libyan intelligence officials were indicted in the US in connection with the attack, but Massoud was the first defendant to appear in an American courtroom.
The widow of a LOCKERBIE victim has spoken out ahead of the first court appearance of the suspected bomber of PAN AM Flight 103.
In an interview with the BBC published on Tuesday, Barr said it was appropriate for the trial to be held in the US, given that 190 of Lockerbie’s 270 victims were American.
He said he wanted the first trial, which took place in the Netherlands in 2000, to be held in the US. In an earlier trial, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi was found guilty of murder. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.
FILE: U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr holds a news conference to provide an update on the investigation into the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 at the Department of Justice Dec. 21, 2020, in Washington.
(Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
“I wanted to be tried in the United States. And I wanted the death penalty to be used in the United States,” said Barr. “I didn’t want to go to Scotland because Scotland doesn’t have the death penalty.”
He added: “Personally, I think that terrorists who commit such atrocities should be executed.”
Prosecutors said in court that they would not seek the death penalty because it did not exist for these specific crimes at the time of the bombing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.