TRIPOLI: Libya’s interim prime minister on Thursday confirmed and justified the extradition of the man alleged to have made the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988.
Tripoli-based premier Abdelhamid Dbeibah said he had “acted with respect for the sovereignty of Libya” in cooperating “when it comes to crimes committed outside its territory.”
Dbeibah has come under heavy criticism from political opponents and rights activists since the extradition.
Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, 71, who allegedly worked as an intelligence agent for the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, appeared in a US court on Monday to face charges for the terror attack that killed 270 people.
He was charged by the United States two years ago for the Lockerbie bombing.
Dbeibah, in a speech broadcast on national television, said Masud was “responsible for the bomb-making cell” in Qaddafi’s regime, and that “he is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 innocent people.”
Dbeibah added that it was important to “make the difference” in the case between the “responsibility of the Libyan state, and that of the individual,” stressing that as regards national responsibility, “the case has been definitively closed” since 2003.
“I will not allow it to be opened again,” he said.
In 2003, Libya agreed compensation for the victims of the bombing after lengthy talks with British and US officials, leading the UN to lift sanctions later that year.
“I no longer tolerate that Libya and its people pay for the consequences of more than 30 years of terrorist operations, and that Libyans are classified as terrorists because accused persons are in Libya,” added Dbeibah.
Only one person has been convicted over the deadliest-ever terror attack in Britain.
The New York-bound aircraft was blown up 38 minutes after it took off from London, sending the main fuselage plunging to the ground in the town of Lockerbie and spreading debris over a vast area.
The bombing killed all 259 people on the jumbo jet, including 190 Americans, and 11 people on the ground.
Two alleged Libyan intelligence operatives — Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah — were charged with the bombing and tried by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
Megrahi spent seven years in a Scottish prison after his conviction in 2001 while Fhimah was acquitted.
Megrahi died in Libya in 2012, always maintaining his innocence.
Since Masud’s extradition, Dbeibah and his government have been criticized, and the attorney general said he would open an investigation at the request of his family.
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Libya’s Dbeibah defends extradition of alleged Lockerbie bomber
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Libya’s Dbeibah defends extradition of alleged Lockerbie bomber
- Tripoli-based premier Abdelhamid Dbeibah said he had "acted with respect for the sovereignty of Libya"
- Abu Agila Mohammad Masud appeared in a US court on Monday to face charges for the terror attack that killed 270 people
Clashes in Syria’s Aleppo deepen rift between government, Kurdish forces
ALEPPO: Fierce fighting in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish fighters drove thousands of civilians from their homes on Wednesday, with Washington reported to be mediating a de-escalation. The violence, and statements trading blame over who started it, signaled that a stalemate between Damascus and Kurdish authorities that have resisted integrating into the central government was deepening and growing deadlier. Deadly clashes broke out on Tuesday between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo’s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest toward the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkiye, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralysing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for ... the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.” During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo’s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest toward the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkiye, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralysing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for ... the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.” During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
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