US police have arrested a Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane 34 years ago.
Abu Agila Masud was charged two years ago for his involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that left 270 people dead.
The blast on board the Boeing 747 is the deadliest terrorist incident to have taken place in Britain and the second largest in America. The largest was the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.
Pan Am Flight 103 had taken off from London on 21 December 1988 and was on its way to John F Kennedy Airport in New York with 259 passengers and crew on board.
All died in the crash and another 11 people were killed in Lockerbie when wreckage destroyed their homes.
A US Justice Department spokesperson told Reuters that Masud would make an initial appearance in a federal court in Washington.
Five years ago he was serving a prison sentence in Libya, also for bomb-making.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of bombing the plane. He was the only man to have been convicted of the attack.
Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison in 2001 and was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government in 2009 after being diagnosed with cancer. He died in his home country in 2012.
Reuters reports that Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said they were working with the UK government and US colleagues in the case.
“We will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with Al-Megrahi to justice,” the office said in a statement.
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