US Prosecuting Attorneys Allege Libyan Voluntarily Confessed to Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist Incident
American prosecutors have stated that a Libyan suspect willingly confessed to participating in operations against Americans, comprising the 1988 Lockerbie incident and an unsuccessful plot to assassinate a American government official using a booby-trapped garment.
Statement Particulars
Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi is alleged to have confessed his role in the deaths of 270 individuals when Flight 103 was exploded over the Scotland's community of Lockerbie, during interviewing in a Libya's detention facility in 2012.
Identified as the defendant, the 74-year-old has claimed that multiple masked persons forced him to deliver the statement after intimidating him and his relatives.
His legal representatives are working to block it from being employed as evidence in his court case in Washington in 2025.
Courtroom Battle
In response, lawyers from the federal prosecutors have stated they can establish in court that the admission was "voluntary, trustworthy and truthful."
The availability of the defendant's claimed admission was originally disclosed in 2020, when the US declared it was accusing him with building and activating the explosive device used on Flight 103.
Defense Allegations
The father-of-six is accused of being a former colonel in Libya's intelligence service and has been in American custody since 2022.
He has pleaded not responsible to the charges and is due to appear in court at the US court for the Washington DC in the coming months.
His legal team are working to stop the jury from being informed about the statement and have filed a request asking for it to be excluded.
They assert it was acquired under pressure following the uprising which removed the former dictator in 2011.
Claimed Coercion
They say previous officials of the leader's regime were being singled out with illegal deaths, abductions and mistreatment when the suspect was taken from his dwelling by hostile persons the following year.
He was moved to an unregistered prison facility where additional detainees were reportedly beaten and abused and was isolated in a tiny cell when multiple masked individuals presented him a solitary document of material.
His attorneys claimed its manually written contents started with an command that he was to admit to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing and a separate terror attack.
Substantial Terror Events
The defendant asserts he was ordered to remember what it stated about the incidents and restate it when he was interviewed by another person the following day.
Being concerned for his well-being and that of his offspring, he said he believed he had no option but to obey.
In their response to the defense's motion, attorneys from the US Department of Justice have said the court was being asked to suppress "very pertinent proof" of Mas'ud's culpability in "two major extremist incidents against US citizens."
Government Counterarguments
They claim the defendant's account of incidents is unconvincing and inaccurate, and contend that the contents of the confession can be verified by credible independent testimony assembled over numerous periods.
The prosecutors claim the suspect and additional previous members of Gaddafi's intelligence service were detained in a covert prison managed by a armed group when they were interrogated by an seasoned Libyan law enforcement official.
They assert that in the turmoil of the post-revolution period, the facility was "the safest location" for the defendant and the additional agents, considering the conflict and opposition feeling prevailing at the time.
Interrogation Details
Based to the police officer who interrogated Mas'ud, the location was "efficiently operated", the inmates were not bound and there were no evidence of abuse or coercion.
The investigator has claimed that over two days, a confident and fit Mas'ud described his role in the explosions of Flight 103.
The federal authorities has also claimed he had admitted constructing a explosive which exploded in a West Berlin venue in the mid-1980s, causing the deaths of multiple people, comprising multiple American military personnel, and wounding many additional.
Additional Allegations
He is also alleged to have detailed his role in an attempt on the life of an unnamed US Secretary of State at a official ceremony in the Asian country.
Mas'ud is alleged to have described that someone accompanying the American figure was carrying a explosive-laden overcoat.
It was the suspect's task to detonate the explosive but he chose not to proceed after finding out that the individual carrying the garment did not know he was on a fatal assignment.
He chose "not to activate the device" although his commander in the secret service being present at the time and inquiring what was {going on|happening|occurring