FBI speaks on Lockerbie suspect before Pan Am flight 103 alleged bombmaker makes first court appearance

The FBI is expected for the first time Monday to publicly address the news that the Lockerbie bombing suspect was taken into U.S. custody over the 1988 plane explosion that killed 270 people in Scotland. 

The alleged Pan Am flight 103 bomb-maker, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, was taken into custody by the United States, the Department of Justice confirmed Sunday. 

He is expected to make his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia at 1 p.m. on Monday. Before then, the FBI scheduled an 11:30 a.m. press conference on the matter. 

Pan Am flight 103, traveling from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard and another 11 on the ground. It remains the deadliest terror attack on British soil. 

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Of the victims, 35 Syracuse University students were killed while returning from study abroad.

At the press conference, held in Miami, Florida, Victoria Cummock, widow of passenger John B. Cummock, and the founder and CEO of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation will speak. 

“Today is a major milestone in the victim’s families’ stalwart quest to identify and hold accountable all those responsible for the second most deadly terrorist attack against Americans. This is a decades-old promise I made to John Cummock, my 38-year-old husband, my best friend and the father of my three children,” Victoria Cummock said in a statement provided to Fox News beforehand. 

She celebrated that the “U.S. arrest and apprehension of Libyan terror suspect Mas’ud, is the first tangible step made by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, in 34 years, to hold any suspect accountable in U.S. courts, for the December 21, 1988, terrorist attack against America that murdered our loved ones, aboard Pan American flight 103, flying from London to New York, exploding over Lockerbie, Scotland.”

“On behalf of my family and my organization’s members, I want to express our gratitude to President Biden, a Syracuse University alumnus, and the U.S. authorities for putting actions behind their pledges,” she continued. “Hopefully, this significant 1st step will begin to address the 3+ decades-long miscarriage of justice. Our wish is for criminal trial proceedings to begin immediately.”

“The victim’s families are keenly aware that after 34 years, informants and witnesses die, memories fade, and evidence can deteriorate or disappear,” she added. “Aside from issuing the 1991 criminal indictments against Libyans, al-Megrahi and Fhimah, and 2020 criminal charges against Libyan Mas’ud, U.S. authorities have never arrested or prosecuted ANY suspects for the mass murder of 190 American citizens and 69 foreign nationals, aboard a U.S. flagship, including 11 people killed on the ground.”