Lockerbie bombing accused says he was forced into false confession

Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, 74, the Libyan detainee charged in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, says he was forced into making a false confession while in custody in Libya. He describes being abducted by three masked men who ordered him to memorize details of the Pan Am 103 attack and another alleged assault, then repeat them the next day under threat to his family. His lawyers have filed a motion in federal court in Washington seeking to suppress the confession ahead of his trial scheduled for April next year. Mas'ud has pleaded not guilty.

Mas'ud says he was kept incommunicado in a custody facility and witnessed beatings in other prisons. He says the three men handed him a handwritten sheet that began with an order to confess to the Lockerbie incident and the other attack, and that he was told to answer questions with the information on the page or harm would come to him or his relatives. He says he complied because he feared for his family and for his own life, and because he had seen detainees beaten in the past. The legal team argues the coercion undermines the voluntariness of any confession.

Mas'ud has been in Libyan custody since December 2022. The FBI noted in a 2012 complaint that he had discussed involvement in the plot while in detention after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, and that he was said to have been congratulated by the Libyan leader for performing a great national duty against the Americans. The defense says the environment in postrevolution Libya included intimidation, disappearances and other abuses and that Mas'ud could not have freely chosen to confess.

Of the 270 people who died on the plane, 259 were on board; 190 were Americans. The Lockerbie bombing trial previously took place in Scotland from May 2000 to January 2001, resulting in the conviction of Libyan intelligence agent Abdulbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi for a key role in the plot. Megrahi was jailed for life, released on compassionate grounds in 2009 because of terminal cancer, and died in 2012.

With about seven months to go until the scheduled start of Mas'ud's trial, his public defenders have asked the U.S. district court in Washington to suppress the confession as evidence and to hold a hearing on the issue. The Libyan has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. But the motion to suppress reveals for the first time his version of what led to the alleged jailhouse confession. Setting the scene, the motion quotes a U.S. Department of State report which said Gaddafi's regime had controlled Libya through extrajudicial killings and intimidation, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention. The document says that after the revolution there was a climate of anger and retaliation against those associated or thought to be associated with Gaddafi. Contemporary reports by U.S. government officials recount more incidents of arbitrary and unlawful killings, kidnappings, torture and other cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment. The defence says: just as a black man accused of killing a white man in Jim Crow-era Arkansas would fear mob violence, so would a Libyan who allegedly worked for Gaddafi have feared retaliation against himself and his family in postrevolution Libya. It was against that background, according to Mas'ud, that he was abducted from his home by armed men, separated from his family and his medication, held incommunicado in an unofficial prison facility and denied procedural rights. He says he saw bodies lying in the streets when he was being driven to the prison and while in custody, and encountered other inmates who had been beaten and abused. Mas'ud has told his legal team that he was alone in a small room when three men in civilian clothes came in. They were unarmed but wearing face coverings and did not identify themselves. He says he was certain the men, who handed him the piece of paper, were anti-Gadaffi revolutionaries. "The single, handwritten sheet began with an order that Mr Al-Marimi confess to the Lockerbie incident, as well as another terrorist attack," his defence lawyers claim. The men told him to read over the details and to repeat what it said when he was questioned by someone else the next day. "They told him he had to answer the questions with what was on the paper, otherwise bad things would happen to him or his family." Mas'ud felt he had no choice but to comply. He had ample reason to fear for himself; before his seizure, he had personally witnessed beatings in others prisons. But he was more afraid for his family. He had six children and felt they still had lives left to live. If he resisted, his children could be assaulted or killed. He personally knew about a friend's daughter who had been shot before his abduction. The FBI has said that the Libyan official who noted Mas'ud's confession in 2012 is prepared to give evidence at his trial. Prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice have not yet responded to the claims made on Mas'ud's behalf.

Prosecutors have not yet publicly responded to the defense motion to suppress the confession. The FBI has said the Libyan official who recorded the 2012 notes is prepared to testify at the trial. The case is being handled in U.S. federal court in Washington, with Mas'ud maintaining his not guilty plea while the parties contest the admissibility of the statements.