🔗 Share this article

US legal authorities have asserted that a Libyan national man willingly confessed to taking part in operations directed at Americans, comprising the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 attack and an failed plot to assassinate a American government official using a rigged overcoat.

Admission Details

Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi is alleged to have acknowledged his role in the murder of 270 people when Pan Am 103 was brought down over the Scotland's area of the region, during questioning in a Libyan holding center in the year 2012.

Referred to as the suspect, the elderly man has asserted that multiple masked individuals compelled him to provide the admission after threatening him and his relatives.

His legal representatives are trying to prevent it from being employed as proof in his legal proceedings in the US capital in 2025.

Judicial Battle

In answer, lawyers from the American justice department have declared they can prove in court that the confession was "voluntary, trustworthy and correct."

The presence of Mas'ud's purported confession was originally revealed in the year 2020, when the United States announced it was indicting him with building and preparing the bomb used on the aircraft.

Defense Assertions

The defendant is charged of being a ex- official in Libya's intelligence agency and has been in US custody since 2022.

He has entered innocent to the accusations and is expected to stand trial at the federal court for the Washington DC in April.

His legal team are working to block the court from being informed about the admission and have submitted a request asking for it to be withheld.

They argue it was secured under pressure following the revolution which removed the Libyan leader in 2011.

Claimed Coercion

They claim former officials of the leader's regime were being victimized with wrongful killings, seizures and torture when Mas'ud was abducted from his home by hostile men the next period.

He was moved to an unofficial holding location where fellow detainees were purportedly assaulted and harmed and was isolated in a small cell when multiple masked persons gave him a one page of documentation.

His attorneys said its scripted details commenced with an instruction that he was to acknowledge to the Lockerbie attack and an additional violent act.

Substantial Terrorist Incidents

Mas'ud asserts he was told to learn what it stated about the incidents and repeat it when he was interrogated by someone else the next morning.

Being concerned for his safety and that of his family, he claimed he felt he had no alternative but to comply.

In their answer to the defense's request, legal counsel from the American justice department have declared the judge was being requested to withhold "extremely significant testimony" of Mas'ud's guilt in "two major terror events targeting US citizens."

Authorities Counterarguments

They say Mas'ud's version of occurrences is unconvincing and inaccurate, and argue that the details of the confession can be corroborated by credible independent evidence gathered over numerous periods.

The government attorneys say the suspect and additional former members of the former leader's intelligence service were held in a hidden holding center run by a faction when they were interrogated by an knowledgeable Libyan police officer.

They assert that in the chaos of the post-uprising era, the center was "the protected environment" for the defendant and the other operatives, accounting for the conflict and resistance feeling prevailing at the time.

Interrogation Particulars

According to the law enforcement official who interrogated the suspect, the center was "efficiently operated", the detainees were not bound and there were no signs of coercion or intimidation.

The officer has stated that over multiple sessions, a self-assured and well Mas'ud described his participation in the attacks of Flight 103.

The federal authorities has also asserted he had confessed creating a explosive which detonated in a Berlin nightclub in the mid-1980s, killing three persons, comprising several US servicemen, and harming dozens others.

Further Allegations

He is also reported to have recounted his involvement in an attempt on the life of an unnamed US diplomatic official at a state funeral in Pakistan.

The defendant is alleged to have described that a person travelling the US figure was wearing a rigged garment.

It was the suspect's assignment to trigger the bomb but he chose not to act after finding out that the individual bearing the garment did not realize he was on a deadly operation.

He decided "not to trigger the button" even though his supervisor in the secret service being alongside at the period and asking what was {going on|happening|occurring