American Prosecutors Assert Libyan Freely Confessed to Lockerbie Attack
US government attorneys have stated that a Libyan man freely confessed to being involved in operations directed at Americans, encompassing the 1988's Lockerbie incident and an aborted conspiracy to assassinate a US politician using a booby-trapped overcoat.
Statement Information
Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi is reported to have admitted his role in the murder of 270 people when Pan Am 103 was exploded over the Scottish area of the region, during questioning in a Libyan detention facility in the year 2012.
Known as the defendant, the elderly man has claimed that several disguised persons compelled him to provide the statement after threatening him and his relatives.
His attorneys are attempting to block it from being employed as evidence in his legal proceedings in DC in 2025.
Legal Battle
In answer, legal counsel from the American justice department have stated they can demonstrate in court that the confession was "voluntary, credible and accurate."
The existence of the suspect's claimed admission was initially made public in 2020, when the United States announced it was indicting him with creating and activating the explosive device employed on Flight 103.
Defense Assertions
The family man is accused of being a former official in Libya's secret service and has been in American confinement since 2022.
He has entered not guilty to the charges and is expected to face trial at the District Court for the the capital in the coming months.
Mas'ud's legal team are working to block the trial from hearing about the admission and have presented a request asking for it to be excluded.
They contend it was acquired under coercion following the uprising which overthrew Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.
Purported Intimidation
They assert ex- members of the dictator's regime were being victimized with wrongful deaths, seizures and abuse when the suspect was abducted from his home by armed individuals the next time.
He was moved to an informal holding location where fellow inmates were allegedly beaten and harmed and was by himself in a cramped room when multiple masked individuals presented him a solitary page of documentation.
His lawyers stated its scripted details began with an instruction that he was to confess to the Lockerbie incident and an additional terrorist incident.
Substantial Extremist Attacks
The suspect claims he was instructed to remember what it indicated about the occurrences and recite it when he was interviewed by someone else the next morning.
Fearing for his well-being and that of his family, he stated he believed he had no alternative but to acquiesce.
In their answer to the defendant's motion, legal counsel from the federal prosecutors have declared the tribunal was being petitioned to exclude "highly significant evidence" of the defendant's responsibility in "two significant terror events directed at American people."
Prosecution Responses
They say Mas'ud's account of occurrences is unbelievable and inaccurate, and argue that the details of the admission can be corroborated by trustworthy external evidence gathered over numerous decades.
The prosecutors say the defendant and additional former officials of the dictator's secret service were kept in a secret prison run by a faction when they were interviewed by an experienced Libyan law enforcement official.
They assert that in the disorder of the aftermath period, the facility was "the safest location" for the suspect and the additional personnel, considering the hostility and resistance sentiment widespread at the moment.
Questioning Particulars
Based to the investigator who interviewed the suspect, the facility was "efficiently operated", the detainees were not confined and there were no indications of torture or pressure.
The officer has stated that over two days, a self-assured and healthy Mas'ud explained his participation in the attacks of Pan Am 103.
The FBI has also stated he had confessed building a device which exploded in a West Berlin nightclub in the mid-1980s, claiming the lives of three people, comprising two American servicemen, and injuring many more.
Additional Allegations
He is also reported to have described his participation in an attempt on the lives of an unidentified US foreign minister at a public event in the Asian country.
Mas'ud is said to have stated that someone with the American official was bearing a rigged garment.
It was Mas'ud's mission to detonate the device but he decided not to do so after finding out that the man bearing the coat did not understand he was on a deadly operation.
He opted "not to activate the device" although his commander in the agency being alongside at the period and inquiring what was {going on|happening|occurring