On Saturday, the family of extradited Libyan national, Abu Ajila Masoud, the former Libyan intelligence officer, announced that they had received the first phone call from him since he was extradited to the United States (US) authorities last year. This was on the grounds of his alleged involvement in the Lockerbie bombing.
Abdel Moneim Al-Marimi, Abu Ajila’s brother, appeared in a shot video while speaking to him via the phone for the first time since the start of his trial in the US.
The call, which lasted less than one minute, was just enough to check on Abu Ajila’s health condition.
Abdel Moneim reassured Abu Ajila that things are going well in Libya, and called on him not to worry about the positions of the House of Representatives (HoR) and the Libyan government, referring to the Libyan government headed by Fathi Bashagha, saying, “they support Abu Ajila in his ordeal.”
Last week, the 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 honor 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 the 23rd of February, if his defense 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 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to piece together enough evidence before he could be apprehended and extradited to the US.
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 US for the bombing, which killed 190 Americans among the 259 people aboard, and a further 11 people on the ground.
