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Lockerbie bombing accused loses bid to dismiss U.S. case
BBC News reported that a U.S. judge rejected Abu Agila Mas'ud al-Marimi's motion to dismiss Lockerbie bombing charges, clearing the way for a January trial in Washington.
- New headline Was: “Lockerbie bombing accused loses bid to have case thrown out”
- Our desk filed its story
A U.S. district judge has denied a motion by Abu Agila Mas'ud al-Marimi to dismiss federal charges over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, BBC News reported on Thursday, Oct. 22, 20261.
Marimi, a Libyan national, is accused of building the bomb that destroyed the airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 270 people1. He has denied a key role in the attack1.
BBC Scotland News said court transcripts show Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled that the way Marimi was brought from Libya to the United States in 2022 does not stop a trial in Washington1. That trial is scheduled to start on Jan. 19 after three postponements1.
His lawyers said armed militia members violently took him from his Tripoli home at night in 2022, held him without lawyers, then handed him to FBI agents at an airport in Misrata for a flight to the United States1. They argued the transfer violated his constitutional rights and U.S.-Libya extradition arrangements1.
Friedrich cited a longstanding U.S. doctrine that a court's power to try a defendant is not lost merely because the person was forcibly brought before it1. She wrote that due process is met when a person present in court is convicted after a fair trial with constitutional safeguards1.
She identified two possible exceptions1. One would require a deliberate, unnecessary and unreasonable invasion of constitutional rights carried out by, or at the direction of, U.S. officials1. Marimi's allegations, she said, "at best suggest that US government officials exerted pressure on Libyan officials to facilitate a rendition"1.
The second exception would apply if the United States had broken an extradition treaty that was the only lawful way to transfer him1. The judge said the government had invoked two conventions, and that neither was the sole method for gaining custody1. BBC quoted her as saying Libya was free to transfer him using any method it chose1.
In a separate ruling, Friedrich also rejected a defense request to suppress a confession the FBI says Marimi made while in Libyan custody in 2012, in which he allegedly admitted building the bomb for Libyan intelligence1. Marimi has said that statement was false and made under duress1.
The only prior criminal trial over Lockerbie, BBC noted, convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in 2001; he was later released by Scottish authorities and died in Tripoli1. Independent confirmation of Friedrich's written order beyond BBC's account of the transcripts was not in the assigned coverage1.