US prosecutors say Libyan freely confessed to Lockerbie bombing

US prosecutors have claimed a Libyan man freely confessed to taking part in attacks on Americans, including the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and an aborted attempt to assassinate a US politician with a booby-trapped overcoat.

Abu Agila Mas’ud Kheir al-Marimi is said to have admitted his role in the murder of 270 people when Pan Am 103 was brought down over the Scottish town, when he was questioned in a Libyan detention facility in 2012.

Known as Mas’ud, the 74-year-old has claimed that three masked men forced him to make the statement after threatening him and his family.

His lawyers are trying to stop it from being used as evidence in his trial in Washington next year.

In response, lawyers from the US Department of Justice have said they can prove in court that the statement was “voluntary, reliable and accurate.”

The existence of Mas’ud’s alleged confession was first revealed in 2020, when the US announced it was charging him with building and priming the bomb used on Pan Am 103.

The father-of-six is accused of being a former colonel in Libya’s intelligence service and has been in US custody since 2022.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is due to stand trial at the District Court for the District of Columbia in April.

Mas’ud’s lawyers are trying to stop the jury from hearing about the statement and have filed a motion asking for it to be suppressed.

They contend it was obtained under duress following the revolution which toppled Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

They say former members of the dictator’s regime were being targeted with unlawful killings, kidnappings and torture when Mas’ud was abducted from his home by armed men the following year.

He was taken to an unofficial prison facility where other inmates were allegedly beaten and abused and was by himself in a small room when three masked men handed him a single sheet of paper.

His lawyers said its handwritten contents began with an order that he was to confess to the Lockerbie bombing and another terror attack.

Mas’ud claims he was told to memorise what it said about the incidents and repeat it when he was questioned by someone else the next day.

Fearing for his safety and that of his children, he said he felt he had no choice but to comply.

In their response to the defence’s request, lawyers from the US Department of Justice have said the court was being asked to suppress “highly relevant evidence” of Mas’ud’s guilt in “two major terrorist attacks against Americans.”

They say Mas’ud’s version of events is implausible and untrue, and argue that the contents of the statement can be corroborated by reliable independent evidence gathered over many years.

The prosecutors say Mas’ud and other former members of Gaddafi’s intelligence service were held in a secret prison operated by a militia when they were questioned by an experienced Libyan police officer.

They argue that in the chaos of the post-revolution period, the facility was “the safest place” for Mas’ud and the other agents, given the violence and anti-Gaddafi sentiment prevailing at the time.

According to the police officer who questioned Mas’ud, the facility was “well run”, the prisoners were not restrained and there were no signs of torture or coercion.

The officer has said that over two days, a confident and healthy Mas’ud detailed his involvement in the bombings of Pan Am 103.

The FBI has also claimed he had admitted building a device which exploded in a West Berlin nightclub in 1986, killing three people, including two US servicemen, and injuring dozens more.

He is also said to have recounted his role in an attempt on the life of an unnamed US Secretary of State at a state funeral in Pakistan.

Mas’ud is said to have explained that someone travelling with the American politician was wearing a booby-trapped overcoat.

It was Mas’ud’s task to detonate the device but he chose not to do so after learning that the person wearing the coat did not know he was on a suicide mission.

He decided “not to push the trigger” despite his superior in the intelligence service being with him at the time and asking what was going on.

The American prosecutors said: “An intelligence operative willing to unilaterally decline to carry out a lethal assignment while in the presence of his superior in that intelligence operation, is unlikely to be particularly susceptible to coercion or pressure.”

It was January 2017 before the Libyan authorities provided a copy of the alleged confession to Scottish investigators, who in turn gave it to the Americans.

The Department of Justice lawyers explained that the Libyan police officer had realised the interviews with Mas’ud and the other prisoners contained highly sensitive information.

Given the chaos and instability in Libya, he had decided to keep them to himself until he could find someone he could trust.

He hid the report in his home for three years until 2015, when he handed it over to a senior Libyan government official.

The US prosecutors say Mas’ud’s version of events does not stand up to scrutiny, and the “extreme remedy” of suppression should not be used.

A hearing to decide whether the statement should be withheld from the jury will take place in due course.