The suspect of the Lockenbie bomb there is no threat of a death penalty

US prosecutors have confirmed that the alleged bomb builder behind the 1988 loose bombing of 1988 is not threatened.

The attack that brought the Pan-Am flight 103 to the crash and killed 270 people remains the deadliest terrorist attack on the British soil.

Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir al-Marimi, a former Libyan secret service day, was informed on Monday before a federal court in Washington that he is faced with three charges.

They include two counts of the destruction of an aircraft with a sequence of death and a further count of the destruction of a vehicle with a sequence of death.

judge Robin Meriweather announced Masud that each of the charges with a prison sentence of up to lifelong imprisonment, the death penalty or a fine of up to $ 250,000 could be punished.

The US prosecutors informed the court, however, that they would not apply for the death penalty because they were not provided for constitutionally at the time of the attack.

Masud, 71, dressed in a dark green prison overall, slowly went to the defense table with an obvious lag.

masud, mostly bald and with white beard, spoke in a rough voice through an interpreter. He recorded a handkerchief and said he had taken a medication against the flu.

He said to Ms. Meriweather: "I can't speak before I see my lawyer".

Who said with his representation, mandatory defenders said Masud wanted to be represented by his own lawyers.

The Pan-AM aircraft flying to New York exploded less than an hour after the start in London on Losterbie on December 21, 1988. It killed 259 people on board, including 35 students from New York Syracuse University. Falling rubble killed 11 more people.

"Countless families have never completely recovered [Masud’s] actions," prosecutor Erik Kenson told the court.

Mr. Kenerson said that it was the most fatal terrorist attack on Great Britain and the United States, only to be exceeded in the United States by the attack of September 11, 2001.

Masud, who allegedly stood his crimes in a Libyan law enforcement officer in September 2012, appeared only a few days after his arrest in Libya. US officials announced on Sunday that the agent of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had come into custody, but it remains unclear how he was arrested.

A number of relatives of the Lockenbie victims were in court to see Masud almost 34 years after the fatal attack in American custody.

"It was quite a moment. It was incredible that it really happened after all these years," said Kara Monetti Weipz, whose brother Rick Monetti died on board the aircraft.

In front of the courthouse, Paul Hudson wore a photo of his daughter Melina, a 16-year-old student who had returned home from an exchange program with a high school in exeter when she died.

He described how Melina's belongings were scattered in the landscape of Lockenbie, but a notebook was found and returned to him.
It was labeled with the quote "Nobody dies when he is not forgotten", he said and added: "I tried to live afterwards."

He kept photos of some of the victims and said that he wanted Abu Agila to "look at these pictures very carefully and understand what he did". He added: "This is a very important day."

US prosecutors unveiled charges against Masud in 2020. At that time he is said to be in Libyan prison, and Bill Barr, the then US Justice Minister, said that the US authorities were working with their Scottish colleagues "poor in arm".

Mr. Barr said: "There must be no mistakes, no time or distance will prevent the United States and our Scottish partners from practicing justice in this case."

Two other Libyan secret service employees were charged in the USA for their alleged participation in the attack, but Masud is the first to appear in an American courtroom for charges.

The other men, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were brought to trial by Scottish judges in 2001.
al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison, while Fhimah was acquitted.

The Scottish authorities left Al-Megrahi in 2009 for humanitarian reasons after he was diagnosed with cancer in the final stage. He died in Tripolis in 2012.

Masud was taken into custody before an adhesion on December 27.