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A Libyan man accused of being involved in making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in December 1988 is now in US custody, authorities in the United States and Scotland said Sunday. The US charged Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi for his alleged involvement in the bombing two years ago, a spokesman for the UK Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service told CNN. The attack killed 270 people as the bomb detonated over the Scottish town as it flew from London to New York.

Former Iranian intelligence officer says Tehran ordered downing of plane over Lockerbie in retaliation for US attack on Iranian airliner. Who was responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland? While the Libyan government was thought to have masterminded the terrorist attack, a bombshell documentary by Al Jazeera quotes a former Iranian intelligence officer as saying that it was Iran that ordered the atrocity. The former agent, Abolghassem Mesbahi, who defected to Germany from Iran, is quoted by the Telegraph as saying that flight 103 was downed in retaliation for a US Navy strike on...

THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya. Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison. The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer. The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens...

LOCKERBIE, Scotland (Reuters) – A simple wreath-laying and prayer service in Lockerbie on Friday marked 30 years since a jumbo jet was blown up over the small Scottish town, killing 270 people. Pan Am flight 103 exploded on its way from London to New York a few days before Christmas in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. It is the deadliest ever militant attack in Britain. Lockerbie, near the English border, with a population of just 4,000 people, has been synonymous with the tragedy ever since. “Let us find hope and peace for...

The Lockerbie bomber has been given an emergency blood transfusion following a sudden deterioration in his health, his brother revealed last night. Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal cancer, was taken from his home in Tripoli to the intensive care unit of a private hospital. The news came less than a fortnight after he celebrated his 60th birthday. He was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds with three months to live, but has survived for more than two-and-a-half years. … Last night, Megrahi's condition was not known, but his wife Aisha was...

Remember at the end of August, when Tripoli was falling and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi took a timely turn for the worse? He was portrayed as "comatose" and the rebels refused to extradite him; after all, he was supposedly very, very near death. It's a miracle. In what appears to be a new interview, he's conscious, coherent, and talking, and says his role was "exaggerated," even as the National Transitional Council gives mixed signals on how much it will cooperate in further investigations. "Megrahi says his Lockerbie role exaggerated," by Mahmoud al-Ghirbani for Reuters, October 3: TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel...

When the Scots released convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Basset Ali al Megrahi on Aug. 20, 2009 - ostensibly because prostate cancer left him less than three months to live - Megrahi presented a stooped, frail figure as he boarded his getaway plane. Hours later when he landed to a hero's welcome in Tripoli, however, Megrahi appeared triumphant and radiant. Two years later, Megrahi is still alive - although perhaps not for long. CNN's Nic Robertson talked his way into Megrahi's supersize mansion, where he videotaped the freed terrorist "apparently in a coma." Maybe. Maybe not. While some...

Meanwhile someone is happy in Libya. The Scottish Daily Record reports, convicted Pan Am bomber Abdelbasset al Megrahi spends his days being chauffered in a Lamborghini to check out his under-construction three-story mansion in a tony Tripoli neighborhood. Every once in a while you see reports that Megrahi -- who killed 270 innocent people in the bombing, and served less than two weeks for each casualty -- is near death and in a coma, but apparently those rumors aren't true. . . . The worst of it is: What does it say about the United Kingdom and the United States...

The former Labour Government did "all it could" to help Libya secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Britain's most senior civil servant said today. David Cameron will this afternoon publish a dossier of 150 pages of letters, memos and minutes related to the case after he promised Barack Obama, the US President, to review all the paperwork and see what could be made public. In an accompanying report, Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, concludes: "Policy was ... progressively developed that Her Majesty's Government should do all it could ... to facilitate an appeal by the Libyans to the...

Ministers secretly advised Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime how to secure the successful early release of the Lockerbie bomber, documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph have disclosed. A Foreign Office minister sent Libyan officials detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis to ensure he was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds. The Duke of York is also said to have played a behind-the-scenes role in encouraging the terrorist’s release. The Libyans closely followed the advice which led to the controversial release of Megrahi – who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan...

Ahead of the Pope’s upcoming visit to Great Britain, there’s been a vigorous debate in some sections of the British press over whether the UK is the centre of the ‘culture of death.’ The discussion was sparked by a timely interview in Zenit with the director of pastoral affairs for the Westminster archdiocese, Edmund Adamus, and in particular this comment he made near the beginning: “Whether we like it or not as British citizens and residents of this country—and whether we are even prepared as Catholics to accept this reality and all it implies—the fact is that historically, and continuing...

The son of Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi is to celebrate the first anniversary of the Lockerbie bomber's release by giving a party for him. Saif Gadaffi, whose friends include Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson, will attend the revelry for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in his two-storey house in Tripoli. He will foot the bill for food and drink, following a day's fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. When Megrahi, 58, was released on August 20 last year, Scottish authorities said he had only three months to live and was 'going home to die'.

The son of Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi is to celebrate the first anniversary of the Lockerbie bomber's release by giving a party for him. Saif Gadaffi, whose friends include Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson, will attend the revelry for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in his two-storey house in Tripoli. He will foot the bill for food and drink, following a day's fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. When Megrahi, 58, was released on August 20 last year, Scottish authorities said he had only three months to live and was 'going home to die'. Frank Duggan, a lawyer...

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has made an outspoken attack on the United States over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Cardinal Keith O'Brien said the Scottish government was right to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi last year on compassionate grounds. US lawmakers want Scottish politicians to explain to a Senate committee their decision to release Megrahi. But the cardinal said ministers should not go crawling to the US like lapdogs. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish government's justice secretary, released Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, after being told that three months was a "reasonable estimate" of his life...

Britain's largest and longest-running terrorist investigation ended last month with the conviction of three British Muslims. Their 2006 plot involved blowing up trans-Atlantic airliners with the hope of killing up to 10,000 people. That near-disaster offers a pungent reminder of the global danger poised by U.K.-based radical Islam.The Heritage Foundation calls British Islamism "a direct security threat" to the United States and The New Republic dubs it "the biggest threat to U.S. security." Officialdom agrees. The British home secretary compiled a dossier in 2003 that acknowledged his country offered a "significant base" for terrorism. A CIA study in 2009 concluded...

BP will this week step up its fight against an "unconstitutional" proposal to ban it from new US offshore drilling, which the British Embassy has warned could be seen as protectionism. US lawmakers have been working for more than a month on new legislation to stop any company from winning offshore oil licences if it has contributed to the deaths of more than 10 workers in the last seven years. The proposal cleared another hurdle by passing through the House of Representatives late on Friday night, but it still has some way to go before becoming law. Its progress has...

The whole story of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, is evidence of the shifty conduct of those supposed to represent us but who in reality disgrace themselves and their offices. Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland on the grounds that he had terminal cancer and would die within three months. Here he is a year later, at home and apparently thriving. A cancer specialist, Dr. Karol Sikora, examined him and is the one who gave him three months. It turns out that the Libyan authorities paid him, and he says now that Megrahi might live ten or even twenty...

Terrorism: The administration says it was surprised and angry at the Lockerbie bomber's "compassionate" release. Now a letter reveals that it actually lobbied for it. Was this malicious intent or mere incompetence? Last week, at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama was asked what he thought about a possible Senate investigation into the "Lockerbie bomber stuff" — namely that British Petroleum, among its other sins, lobbied the British government to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in order to win oil contracts from the Libyan government. Obama replied: "I think all of us...

...So we've got a mosque at Ground Zero, the regime has not spoken out against it. They want to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. They want NASA to reach out to Muslims; the same regime that has spent millions of American taxpayer dollars supporting a constitutional referendum in Kenya legalizing abortion there; the same regime that looked the other way when the Iranian people had an opportunity to get their freedom back; the same regime that has done nothing to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; the same regime that has beat up on Israel like a...

While many Americans are cutting back on their vacation plans or eliminating them altogether, Barack Obama is setting an aspirational example for all of us. Sure, times are tough, but perhaps we can enjoy a life of leisure vicariously through our betters. On July 16-18, the Obamas enjoyed their first summer vacation in beautiful Bar Harbor, Maine. The idyllic town has long been favorite summer getaway for the rich and powerful going back to the Gilded Age. Truly a resort fit for a king public servant. Anticipating exhaustion from two long weeks in Washington, D.C., Michelle Obama is hosting her...