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Upcoming Lockerbie bombing terror trial in US dredges up Gaddafi, SA and Mandela links

Upcoming Lockerbie bombing terror trial in US dredges up Gaddafi, SA and Mandela links
Policemen look at the wreckage of the 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, 22 December 1988. The flight was on route for New York with 259 passengers on board. All 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed as well as 11 Lockerbie residents. In 2003, Libya admitted responsibility for the deaths of the 270 victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing. (Photo: ROY LETKEY / AFP)
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
7 Jan 2025
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The 1988 bombing of a plane over Scotland, which killed 270 people including a South African, and which sparked Nelson Mandela’s concern, remains the deadliest terror attack in UK history. Now another suspect linked to Libya is set to go on trial for it in the US.

On 21 December 1988, Nicole Jane Hall of South Africa was on her way to see her fiancé in New York.

The 23-year-old from Sandton was in seat 23K on a Pan Am flight from London. 

But Hall never made it to New York.

Just 38 minutes into the flight, the plane exploded over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland.



All 259 passengers and crew aboard the flight were killed, along with 11 people on the ground as debris showered down.

Deadliest UK terror attack


The Lockerbie bombing remains the deadliest terror attack in the UK to date.

It has spawned various conspiracy theories and stances, some tangled in South African politics and tying into countries including the US, the UK and Libya.

Now, even though nearly four decades have passed since the tragedy, another accused, Abu Agila Mas’ud (full name: Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi), is set to be tried for it in the US.

And hundreds of people from around the world – those affected by the Lockerbie blast – may get a chance to access the court proceedings.

Mas’ud, of Tunisia and Libya and who is in his early seventies, is expected to go on trial in the US on 12 May on charges relating to an explosive and the destruction of an aircraft resulting in death.

He made his first US court appearance in December 2022 and later  reportedly pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Explosives expert and Libyan intel


According to a US Office of Public Affairs statement about his initial court appearance, a criminal complaint against Mas’ud alleged that between 1973 and 2011 he “worked for the External Security Organization (ESO), the Libyan intelligence service which conducted acts of terrorism against other nations, in various capacities including as a technical expert in building explosive devices”.

It was further alleged that two Libyan intelligence operatives, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were linked to Mas’ud.

Megrahi was previously convicted over the Lockerbie blast, while Fhimah was acquitted.



Despite Fhimah’s acquittal, the US appears to stand by allegations that he was involved in the bombing.

In 2001, US Department of Justice official Robert Mueller stated: “The verdict of not guilty with respect to Fhimah is not an affirmation that he is innocent of the crime charged.”

And the 2022 US Office of Public Affairs statement, about Mas’ud, made allegations still implicating Fhimah.

It said: “In the winter of 1988, Mas’ud was directed by a Libyan intelligence official to fly to Malta with a prepared suitcase. 

“There he was met by Megrahi and Fhimah at the airport. Several days later, Megrahi and Fhimah instructed Mas’ud to set the timer on the device in the suitcase for the following morning, so that the explosion would occur exactly 11 hours later.”

According to the US, on the morning of 21 December 1988, Megrahi and Fhimah were both at an airport.

Mas’ud allegedly handed the suitcase to Fhimah who placed it on a conveyor belt. 

The bomb exploded that evening above Lockerbie and “Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed, almost instantaneously, 38 minutes after takeoff”.

According to the US allegations, both Mas’ud and Fhimah later met then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi “who thanked them for carrying out a great national duty against the Americans”.

Mas’ud now faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars if convicted in the US.

Lockerbie Policemen look at the wreckage of the Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 22 December 1988. All 259 passengers and crew were killed, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents. In 2003, Libya admitted responsibility for their deaths. (Photo: Roy Letkey / AFP)


Global victim search


At the start of 2024, the US Congress passed legislation to make available remote access to Mas’ud’s court proceedings to those affected by the Lockerbie bombing. 

In other words, victims of the bombing.

Daily Maverick established that, about two weeks ago, the US District Court of Colombia ruled that individuals who successfully applied to be victims of the Lockerbie bombing may have controlled access to trial proceedings at secure locations.

Previously the US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation became involved with tracing people around the world who met certain criteria to be classified as victims, and created an online questionnaire for this.



Based on US court documents, which Daily Maverick has seen, in mid-2024 the government was ordered to finalise its list of victims who wanted to access the Mas’ud court proceedings.

As of October 2024, 417 victims had responded. Of those, 244 were from the US, while 173 were “from nine foreign countries dispersed geographically around the globe”.

Passengers from South Africa


Even though South Africa was not listed as one of those countries, Nicola Jane Hall, the passenger, was from Johannesburg.

A Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation website included a brief tribute to her: “Nicola Jane Hall, from South Africa, was travelling to New York to spend Christmas with her fiancé. She leaves her parents, Tony and Pippa, and her sister, Suzi.”

There seems to be very little other information about Hall online.

Another passenger on the bombed flight, Martin Bernard Carruthers Simpson, also appeared to be from South Africa originally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_QzN0wp1UU

A December 1988 article from The New York Times said: “Martin B. C. Simpson, founder and president of the Martin Simpson & Company stock brokerage, was a victim of the Pan American World Airways crash in Scotland… 

“Mr Simpson, a native of South Africa, was a graduate of Cambridge University and received a doctorate from New York University. His firm, founded in 1973, specializes in research in computers, medicine and defense electronics.”

Botha, Mandela and Gaddafi


The Lockerbie bombing sparked several suspicions and theories, and was steeped in politics.

Some issues relate to Pik Botha, South Africa’s foreign affairs minister during apartheid. He had reportedly been booked on the flight but had taken another plane instead, which some thought pointed to him having known about the blast beforehand.

To dispel such ideas, Botha subsequently said he had not known about it.

“If the minister had known there was a bomb, he would not have put his tail between his legs and quietly boarded another flight,” his spokesperson said.

Democratic South Africa’s first president, Nelson Mandela, also features prominently in Lockerbie-related issues – he seemed to become a mediator between the UK and Gaddafi.

Read more: Gaddafi gave ANC ‘substantial’ donation for 2009 election campaign, says Mathews Phosa

Gaddafi’s apparent links to the ANC, meanwhile, persisted.

Daily Maverick reported in November that in his recently released memoir, Witness to Power, the party’s former treasurer-general, Mathews Phosa, wrote “that the ANC did, under successive treasurers-general, receive donations from Gaddafi”.

As for Mandela, in 1990, shortly after his release from prison for opposing apartheid, he visited Libya and Gaddafi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkEvB94uhRA

The Los Angeles Times, reporting on the visit, said Mandela had thanked Gaddafi “for military training he gave ANC fighters” and that Mandela had “condemned the 1986 US air raids on Libya.”

It also quoted Mandela as saying: “We consider ourselves comrades in arms.”

Mandela, in a 1992 statement, condemned the Lockerbie bombing, labelling it a tragedy and referenced potential upcoming legal proceedings, saying: “In the present climate of suspicion and fear it is important that the trial should not be intended to humiliate a head of state.”

‘Psychological prosecution’ plus politics


A decade later, in 2002, Mandela reportedly visited Megrahi, the Libyan who was the only individual convicted for the Lockerbie bombing, in a Scottish jail.

Mandela pushed for Megrahi’s case to be looked at again. 

The Guardian quoted Mandela as saying: “Other legal men, other judges… have criticised [this judgment] ferociously and it will be a pity if no court reviews the case itself.”

Read more: Shades of Apartheid: Libyans (and many others) struggle to justify past Gaddafi support

About Megrahi himself, Mandela said: “He has nobody he can talk to. 

“It is a psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone. It would be fair if he transferred to a Muslim country”.

In 2003, Libya agreed to compensate families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing and in exchange, sanctions against it were to be lifted.

Megrahi was released from a Scottish jail six years later, on compassionate grounds because he had cancer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzgCyatoEDQ&t=13s

He died in Libya in 2012. (In 2021, a posthumous appeal against Megrahi’s conviction was denied.)

The saga hints at how deeply political the Lockerbie tragedy became – the UK had been sceptical about Mandela’s role in trying to mediate with Gaddafi over Lockerbie bombing compensation.

Mandela, meanwhile, had condemned 1986 US air strikes on Libya, had shown support to Gaddafi and had seemed sympathetic towards Megrahi, whereas the US later expressed regret over the decision to free Megrahi from jail.

Now, in 2025, it may emerge whether Mas’ud will become the second convict for the bombing that claimed 270 lives – and whether any South African political leaders will show an interest in the case. DM

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