The Libyan government in Tripoli yesterday named the two new Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing investigation as Abdullah al-Senussi, the former spy chief of former leader Muammar Gaddafi and Mohammed Abouajela Masud, a known bomb maker.
Abdullah al-Senussi, Colonel Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief, is being held at a prison in Tripoli. The location of Mohammed Abouajela Masud is unknown.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted over the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988. Families of the 270 people who died have welcomed the naming of two new suspects.
The Pan Am aircraft was on its way from London to New York on December 21, when it exploded above Lockerbie. The explosion killed everyone on board as well as 11 people in the town. Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for a minimum of 27 years. He died in 2012 after being released from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Stephanie Bernstein, a US citizen whose husband was among those killed, told the BBC that she was “surprised, delighted and really gratified” by the news that two further suspects had been identified. “There are many, many people who I hope are not sleeping so well tonight knowing that the Scottish government and the US government are committed to pursuing this case,” she said.
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Frank Duggan, president of Pan Am 103 Relatives, which represents many of the US victims of the bombing, said he was not confident there would be further prosecutions. “It’s been 26 years. It’s too long, people are dead, stories have been forgotten,” he said. I’d like to think it will be one small measure of closure but I don’t expect the kind of justice we all hope for.”
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the bombing, claimed that any prosecution would “need to be supported by very much better evidence” than that used against Megrahi, who he believes was not responsible for the attack.
Sources said it was unlikely that Tripoli would agree to the men being extradited.