A police officer walks by the nostril of Pan Am flight103 in a area close to the city of Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Martin Cleaver/AP

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Martin Cleaver/AP

A police officer walks by the nostril of Pan Am flight103 in a area close to the city of Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Martin Cleaver/AP

U.S. authorities have apprehended a Libyan man suspected of establishing the bomb that destroyed a passenger airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 individuals, together with 190 Americans.

“The United States has taken custody of alleged Pan Am flight 103 bombmaker Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi,” a spokesperson for the Department of Justice mentioned in a press release to NPR.

Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service confirmed that the households of these killed within the bombing have additionally been notified of the arrest.

“Scottish prosecutors and police, working with UK Government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with Al Megrahi to justice,” the workplace mentioned in a press release.

On Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded into items over Lockerbie, Scotland after a bomb was positioned within the cargo space of the airplane. The bombing was the one deadliest terror assault within the historical past of the United Kingdom, and the second deadliest for Americans after Sept. 11, 2001. The airplane had taken off from London and was on its technique to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

According to federal officials, passengers and crew from 21 completely different international locations had been killed within the assault. Of the 190 Americans who died, 35 of them had been college students from Syracuse University in upstate New York who had been returning house for the vacations after a semester finding out overseas.

The assault launched a decades-long worldwide manhunt for the bomb-makers. In 2020, U.S. authorities made a breakthrough within the case after Libyan authorities apprehended Mas’ud, a former Libyan intelligence operative, and interviewed him about his involvement within the assault.

In 2020, the Justice Department charged Mas’ud with destruction of an plane leading to loss of life and destruction of a automobile by way of an explosive leading to loss of life.

The division says he’ll make his preliminary courtroom look within the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.