Libya’s Dbeibah defends extradition of alleged Lockerbie bomber

Abu Agila Mohammad Masud accused of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, is shown listening in this courtroom sketch drawn during an initial court appearance in US District Court in Washington on December 12, 2022. (Reuters)

• Tripoli-based premier Abdelhamid Dbeibah said he had "acted with respect for the sovereignty of Libya"
• Abu Agila Mohammad Masud appeared in a US court on Monday to face charges for the terror attack that killed 270 people

TRIPOLI: Libya’s interim prime minister on Thursday confirmed and justified the extradition of the man alleged to have made the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988.
Tripoli-based premier Abdelhamid Dbeibah said he had “acted with respect for the sovereignty of Libya” in cooperating “when it comes to crimes committed outside its territory.”
Dbeibah has come under heavy criticism from political opponents and rights activists since the extradition.
Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, 71, who allegedly worked as an intelligence agent for the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, appeared in a US court on Monday to face charges for the terror attack that killed 270 people.
He was charged by the United States two years ago for the Lockerbie bombing.
Dbeibah, in a speech broadcast on national television, said Masud was “responsible for the bomb-making cell” in Qaddafi’s regime, and that “he is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 innocent people.”
Dbeibah added that it was important to “make the difference” in the case between the “responsibility of the Libyan state, and that of the individual,” stressing that as regards national responsibility, “the case has been definitively closed” since 2003.
“I will not allow it to be opened again,” he said.
In 2003, Libya agreed compensation for the victims of the bombing after lengthy talks with British and US officials, leading the UN to lift sanctions later that year.
“I no longer tolerate that Libya and its people pay for the consequences of more than 30 years of terrorist operations, and that Libyans are classified as terrorists because accused persons are in Libya,” added Dbeibah.
Only one person has been convicted over the deadliest-ever terror attack in Britain.
The New York-bound aircraft was blown up 38 minutes after it took off from London, sending the main fuselage plunging to the ground in the town of Lockerbie and spreading debris over a vast area.
The bombing killed all 259 people on the jumbo jet, including 190 Americans, and 11 people on the ground.
Two alleged Libyan intelligence operatives — Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah — were charged with the bombing and tried by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
Megrahi spent seven years in a Scottish prison after his conviction in 2001 while Fhimah was acquitted.
Megrahi died in Libya in 2012, always maintaining his innocence.
Since Masud’s extradition, Dbeibah and his government have been criticized, and the attorney general said he would open an investigation at the request of his family.