Lockerbie bombing prosecutors ‘could interview’ mastermind and bomb-maker behind Pan Am terror disaster who is being held in Libyan prison.
Investigators from Scotland and the US are increasingly hopeful they will be given permission to interview two suspects
Lockerbie bombing detectives are close to quizzing two Libyan cons suspected of being the mastermind and bomb-maker behind the atrocity.
Investigators are hoping they will be given permission to interview Abdullah Senussi and Abu Agila Mas’ud as the investigation into disaster continues almost 30 years later.
Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi is currently being held in a Libyan prison
The atrocity killed all 259 people on board the Pan Am flight plus 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie
Officers say that the response from Libya has been “positive and constructive” as they hope for a breakthrough – nearly three decades since doomed Pan Am flight 103 exploded mid-air above Lockerbie in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
Cops are hoping to use the same diplomatic channels as those investigating the Manchester Arena bombing after the Libyan Prime Minister said he was willing to extradite suicide bomber Salman Ramadan Abedi’s brother to the UK.
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Hasham Albedi is wanted for questioning by British terror chiefs who are hoping to put him on trial over the May 22 attack, which left 22 dead and hundreds injuries at an Ariana Grande gig.
He travelled with bomber Salman Abedi to Libya in 2017, with Salman returning alone before carrying out the atrocity.
The news comes following assurances from Libya’s Prime Minister that his government is willing to extradite Hashem Abedi
Prosecutors are close to gaining access to two Libyans suspected of planning the Lockerbie bombing
Investigators from Scotland and the US are increasingly hopeful they will be given permission to interview Abdullah Senussi and Abu Agila Mas’ud
Although Libya is still a fractured state, the UN-backed prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, told the BBC earlier this year that there are active plans to extradite Abedi, adding: “We are fully cooperating because we understand the suffering of the families of the victims of this terrorist attack.”
Semussi, said to have been the Lockerbie mastermind, and Mas’ud, said to be the bomb-maker, are both currently held in a Libyan prison.
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Semussi was formerly Muammar Gaddafi’s right-hand man and has been sentenced to death – but that has not been ratified by Libya’s parliament.
He has been identified as the Libyan who was with al-Megrahi in Malta on the day the bomb was loaded onto the Libyan flight to Frankfurt that connected to PanAm103, and is named on the Crown Office.
Masud was given a 12 year sentence for unrelated bomb-making offences.
So far only one suspect, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, has been convicted for the bombing.
He died in 2012 but his family are hoping to lodge an appeal against the conviction, convinced it was a miscarriage of justice – despite the Crown Office standing by the original verdict.
Almost a decade later former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill insists he has no regrets about his decision to release Megrahi and allow him to return home to Libya
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