Scotland identifies new Libyan Lockerbie bombing suspects

“The two individuals are suspected of involvement, along with Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, in the bombing of flight Pan Am 103 in December 1988 and the murder of 270 people”.

Brian Murtagh, the lead U.S. prosecutor in the Lockerbie, told The New Yorker that Dornstein, as a journalist, had certain advantages over government investigators: “For an Federal Bureau of Investigation agent to go to the places where Ken has gone, he would have to have permission from the Libyan government and the authorization of the State Department”.

A Crown Office spokesman said they agreed there is “proper basis” in Scottish and U.S. law to “treat two Libyans as suspects” in the attack.

The potential breakthrough came after Scotland’s Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC recently met US Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Washington to review progress in the case. The three-part series was by filmmaker and author Ken Dornstein, whose elder brother was among those killed. He has not been named by USA or Scottish officials as a suspect. The crimes they have been charged with in Libya are not related to the Lockerbie bombing.

Eleven people died on the ground as the New York-bound jet crashed when a bomb exploded in its hold a few 40 minutes after leaving London’s Heathrow airport. But investigators have always believed others were involved. He died in 2012 pleading his innocence.

In December previous year, Scotland’s top prosecutor said no new evidence had emerged to cast doubt on Megrahi’s conviction, but said attempts to track down accomplices had been hampered by the violence which has engulfed Libya since Gaddafi’s fall.

Mas’ud’s name also appeared in the original charges brought against Megrahi in court in 2001, when he was said to have travelled with him before the bombing.

A few families of Lockerbie victims remain skeptical that al-Megrahi was involved, and backed his long campaign of appeals. British families, including the veteran Lockerbie campaigner Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, are still attempting to clear his name posthumously.