US JUDGE REJECTS LOCKERBIE SUSPECT'S BID TO DISMISS CASE

A US district court judge has rejected Abu Agila Mas'ud al-Marimi's bid to dismiss the case against him over his transfer from Libya into US custody. Prosecutors accuse him of building the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. The attack killed 270 people on 21 December 1988. Mas'ud al-Marimi denies playing a key role in the bombing.

His lawyers allege that armed militia members violently abducted him from his home in Tripoli in 2022. They say his captors held him for weeks without access to lawyers before handing him to FBI agents at an airport in Misrata. He was then flown to the United States, according to the defence account. Mas'ud al-Marimi argued that the transfer violated his constitutional rights and extradition agreements between the two countries.

Judge Dabney Friedrich cited a US legal doctrine under which forcible abduction does not prevent a court from trying a defendant. She said an exception would require US officials to have carried out or directed a “deliberate, unnecessary and unreasonable invasion” of his constitutional rights. Friedrich said his allegations “at best suggest that US government officials exerted pressure on Libyan officials to facilitate a rendition”. She also considered an exception involving a breach of an extradition agreement. His trial is due to begin in Washington in January.