Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud, suspected of constructing the bomb that destroyed a passenger airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 that killed 190 Americans, made his first look in U.S. federal courtroom on Monday.
When Mas’ud entered the federal courtroom, he noticed the households of his alleged victims face-to-face. Thirty-four years in the past, in December 1988, Pan Am flight 103, which was touring from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie, killing all 259 folks aboard the airplane and 11 on the bottom within the deadliest terror assault on British soil.
Courtroom sketch by William J. Hennessy, Jr.
At his preliminary look in courtroom, Mas’ud, who walks with a limp, wore an Alexandria Sheriff’s jail uniform and a white masks. He eliminated the masks in the course of the listening to. Mas’ud communicated with Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather and a public defender from Virginia via an interpreter. The public defender stated Mas’ud had knowledgeable her that he wished to rent an lawyer of his personal and requested for per week to take action.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. charged with three counts: two counts of destruction of an plane leading to loss of life and a depend of destruction of a automobile utilized in overseas commerce via an explosive, leading to loss of life. The indictment got here two years after Mas’ud, a 71-year-old Libyan nationwide who was born in Tunisia, was first accused of participating within the terror assault.
Each cost carries a most sentence of life in jail or loss of life, however prosecutors stated in courtroom they might not search the loss of life penalty as a result of it wasn’t allowed below federal legislation on the time the alleged crime was dedicated.
Mas’ud might be detained pending a listening to later this month. In courtroom on Monday, prosecutors urged the choose to maintain the alleged bomb designer behind bars, saying “countless families have never fully recovered” from his actions.