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Abu Agila Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, a Libyan man accused of orchestrating the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie 36 years ago, has recently claimed that he was coerced into giving a false confession. Mas’ud, who is now 74 years old, stated that while in custody in Libya, he was forced by three masked men to memorize details about the destruction of the American airliner and another terrorist incident. Under duress and threats to his family, Mas’ud repeated the information to a Libyan official.
His lawyers have filed a motion with a federal court in Washington seeking to have the alleged confession deemed inadmissible before his trial scheduled for next April. The details of this confession surfaced five years ago when Mas’ud was charged by the US Department of Justice for his involvement in the attack that resulted in the deaths of 270 individuals on December 21, 1988. Mas’ud reportedly confessed to playing a significant role in the plot while detained in 2012 after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime the previous year.
The only trial related to the Lockerbie bombing occurred between May 2000 and January 2001, where three Scottish judges found Libyan intelligence agent Abdulbasset al-Megrahi guilty of playing a crucial role in the attack. Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison but was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 due to terminal cancer. Mas’ud’s trial is set to take place in the US, where he has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and his defense team is arguing that the alleged confession was a result of coercion in a post-revolution Libya filled with fear and retaliation.
Mas’ud described being forcefully taken from his home by armed men, separated from his family and medication, and subjected to inhumane treatment in an unofficial prison facility. He claimed he was handed a sheet of paper by three unidentified individuals who threatened harm to his family if he did not comply with their instructions to confess to the Lockerbie incident and another terrorist attack. Mas’ud’s legal team is pushing for the suppression of these alleged statements, citing previous court rulings on coerced custodial statements in the US. The FBI has indicated that the Libyan official who recorded Mas’ud’s confession is willing to testify at the upcoming trial, while prosecutors from the US Department of Justice have yet to respond to the defense’s claims
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