A former Libyan intelligence operative pleaded not guilty to assembling the explosives used in the 1988 bombing of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 270 people were killed in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in US history, according to Washington Post.
Abu Ajila Masoud, 71, entered his plea in federal court in Washington, on Wednesday. This follows his extradition in December by one of Libya’s rival factional governments.
“At this time your honour we would enter a plea of not guilty,” said Whitney Minter, a US federal public defender.
US authorities said they would seek Masoud’s continued detention pending trial at a bond hearing on 23 February, if his defence sought to argue for his conditional release. He possibly faces two counts, including the destruction of an aircraft resulting in death, punishable upon conviction by up to life in prison.
The US Justice Department has alleged that Masoud confessed his crimes to a Libyan law enforcement official, in September 2012.
It took many years for the FBI to piece together enough evidence, before he could be apprehended and extradited to the United States.
In 1991, two other Libyan intelligence operatives, Abdel-Baset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were charged in the bombing. Fhimah was acquitted of all charges, but Scottish prosecutors have maintained that Megrahi did not act alone.
At a Scottish trial before a court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing in 2001 and was jailed for life. He was later released on compassionate grounds, and died at his home in Tripoli in 2012 after suffering from cancer.
Masoud would be the first suspect tried in the United States for the bombing, which killed 190 Americans among the 259 people aboard, and a further 11 people on the ground.
