Dec. 21 (UPI) — Thirty-five years after a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 killed more than 270 people in Scotland, President Joe Biden said the United States will never waiver in its efforts to bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the attack.
The White House released a statement Thursday in observance of the 35th anniversary of the bombing.
Pan Am Flight 103 was en route from London to New York on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb detonation on board caused it to crash in Lockerbie, Scotland. The resulting explosion killed 273 people, including all 258 aboard and at least 15 more on the ground. According to the Royal Air Force, the crash destroyed about 40 houses.
A number of Americans, including 38 exchange students from Syracuse University in New York, were on the flight. Also on the flight was the U.N. commissioner for Namibia, who was flying to New York to sign a historic peace pact for southern Africa.
“Their loss was a tragedy that reverberated around the globe — and one that is still felt today by all those families and friends who continue to grieve for their loved ones,” Biden said in the statement, adding the U.S. will never waiver in its pursuit of terrorists at home and abroad.
“In the decades since this horrific attack, the United States and our Scottish partners have not stopped in our pursuit of justice,” he said.
Two Libyans, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, were brought to face trial in 2000 over their suspected involvement in the bombing. Megrahi was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, but Fahima was freed of all charges.
Megrahi’s minimum sentence was 27 years, which he appealed while maintaining his innocence. He lost two appeals but was released in 2009 on “compassionate grounds” after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi died in 2012. He was the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing.
Last year, the U.S. took custody of another key suspect in the bombing. Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud was suspected of making the bomb that exploded on board Pan Am Flight 103.
Mas’ud in February pled not guilty to three federal charges — two of aircraft destruction resulting in death and one of destruction of a vehicle used in foreign commerce by an explosive.
A Justice Department criminal complaint in 2020 said Mas’ud admitted to building the bomb that was used to bring down the plane. He allegedly carried the bomb in a suitcase to Malta’s Luqa airport, where it was loaded onto an aircraft with a timer that Mas’ud admitted to setting to go off in eleven hours.
Mas’ud faces life in prison if convicted.
