Lockerbie bombing whistleblower arrested in Libya

Samir Shegwara, a Libyan writer and politician, has been arrested on charges related to national security. His arrest occurred just two days after the BBC reported that he had published documents that could serve as evidence against a Libyan man accused of creating the bomb that caused the tragic crash of Pan Am Flight 103. This bombing, which took place in December 1988, resulted in the deaths of 270 individuals. The man accused, Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, is currently facing trial in Washington, D. C. , and he has denied any involvement in the attack. The documents that Mr. Shegwara published also suggest that Libyan agents were involved in another tragic incident, the crash of a French airliner in the Sahara desert in 1989, which killed an additional 170 people. Mr. Shegwara claims that he retrieved these documents from the archives of Libya's former intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi, after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi's regime in 2011. The contents of these documents were published in a book titled 'The Murderer Who Must Be Saved,' which Mr. Shegwara co-authored with French investigative journalists Karl Laske and Vincent Nouzille. The book was released in January of this year. The publishers of the book have stated that Mr. Shegwara is facing legal action for allegedly possessing classified security documents without proper authorization. He was arrested at his office on March 20, and he has been publicly discussing these documents since 2018, making it clear that he had them in his possession. His arrest seems to support his belief, which he shares with the French journalists, that the documents are authentic. The publishing company, Robert Laffont, has asserted that the authenticity of the documents is unquestionable and that they contain information of significant public and historical interest to Libya, France, Scotland, and the United States. They have expressed their disapproval of the prosecution against Mr. Shegwara and the pressure he seems to be under to retract his statements about the crimes committed by Gaddafi's former regime. They have called on the Libyan authorities to drop the charges against him. On April 1, Mr. Shegwara was provisionally released but remains at risk of being re-arrested and facing trial in the near future. A retired FBI special agent, who led the original investigation into the Lockerbie disaster, has described the documents as potentially explosive evidence. One of the most significant documents appears to detail tests conducted on bombs hidden in suitcases just weeks before the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The bomb that destroyed the plane was concealed inside a radio cassette player in a suitcase located in the forward hold. A copy of one of the Libyan files reviewed by the BBC indicates that it discusses 'Experiments on the use of the suitcase and testing its effectiveness. ' This handwritten report is marked 'top secret' and is dated October 4, 1988, with the sender identified as the Information and Strategic Studies Centre in Tripoli, which was led at the time by Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi, who was convicted in 2001 for the Lockerbie bombing by a Scottish court. The document states that the tests were successful, resulting in a 'powerful and effective' explosion from a device that could not be detected by X-ray scanners. The Lockerbie bombing remains the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil, and the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 is a stark reminder of this tragedy. The report also mentions an agent named Aboujila Kheir, who is believed to be Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, as being involved in the tests. Another document appears to detail the transfer of 10 kilograms of explosives to an office in Malta, which was staffed by Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah, a Libyan who was cleared during the first Lockerbie trial. Other documents are said to involve the expenses of agents who traveled to Malta just days before the attack on Pan Am 103. The Scottish court concluded that the bomb was smuggled onto a plane in Malta and then routed through the baggage system to Frankfurt and Heathrow before being loaded onto the American airliner. The documents also implicate Abdullah Senussi in the planning of the attacks on both Pan Am 103 and the French plane, UTA Flight 772. Colonel Gaddafi's brother-in-law, Senussi, was convicted of bombing UTA 772 after a trial held in his absence in 1999, but he has never served the life sentence imposed by the Paris court. He was named as a suspect in the Lockerbie case by Scottish and American prosecutors in 2015. Currently, Senussi is facing trial in Libya for his actions during the uprising against Gaddafi that occurred 14 years ago. Police Scotland and Scotland's prosecution service, the Crown Office, have declined to comment on Mr. Shegwara's arrest.