Libyan who was cleared after Lockerbie bombing trial dies aged 70

A Libyan who was cleared after standing trial over the Lockerbie bombing has died aged 70.

Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah was accused of murdering 270 people in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

He was found not guilty but a second Libyan, Abdulbasset Al Megrahi, was convicted of playing a key role in the bombing of the American airliner.

A Facebook post by Libyan Airlines announced Fhimah's death and expressed the company's condolences to his family.

Fhimah worked for the carrier in Malta before the bombing of Pan Am 103.

His funeral is set to take place on Wednesday in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.

The charges against Fhimah and Megrahi were first announced by Scotland and the United States in 1991.

Years of sanctions imposed on Libya by the United Nations led to the two men being handed over to stand trial at a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.

In 2001, three judges convicted Megrahi of mass murder and jailed him for life, but found Fhimah not guilty.

Megrahi died from cancer in 2012, after being freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government.

Fhimah always denied any involvement and was welcomed home to Libya by the country's late dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

In 2022, the FBI revealed that he had been implicated in the case again, through an alleged confession made by another Libyan who is facing trial in the United States.

Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi is said to have told a Libyan police officer that he took part in a plot to bomb the plane along with Fhimah and Megrahi, when all three were members of the Libyan intelligence service.

Al-Marimi has denied making the bomb that brought down the jumbo jet and claims the confession is false and was made under duress.

The contents of Al-Marimi's alleged confession and other new evidence which has emerged from Libya has led to speculation that Fhimah could have faced a second trial over the attack on the airliner.

The indictment against Fhimah announced by the US Government in 1991 is still outstanding.

Under the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011, external, a suspect can be tried over the same crime a second time, if there is new evidence - which was not available during the original trial - that substantially strengthens the case against them.

The BBC understands Scottish and US prosecutors would have looked at taking fresh action against Fhimah, if Al-Marimi was convicted by the court in Washington next year.

But pursuing a prosecution in Scotland or the US would have been legally challenging and politically sensitive, given his acquittal by the Scottish court in 2001.

On 21 December 1988, a plane explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. Almost four decades on, there's fresh evidence. Who was really behind the bombing?

Al Marimi is now due to stand trial in Washington in January, after a federal court judge agreed to postpone the case for a third time.

The delay, requested by the defence, followed the emergence of "newly discovered" evidence on the case.

The postponement was not connected to Fhimah's reported death.

Lockerbie bombing trial postponed days before it was due to start

I thought the Lockerbie bombing was a closed case until I started asking questions

Lockerbie bombing: The ultimate detective story?