WILD

Suspected Lockerbie Bombmaker Was ‘Abducted by Warlord’ Ahead of Arrest: Report

The Libyan man was kidnapped from his home by a warlord and held by an armed militia for two weeks before he was taken into U.S. custody, The Guardian reports.

The Libyan man accused of making the bomb that destroyed a 1988 Pan Am flight, killing 270 people, was kidnapped from his home by a “notorious warlord” and held by an armed militia for two weeks before being taken into U.S. custody, The Guardian reported Monday. Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud’s detention was announced on Sunday, with the U.S. Department of Justice providing few details on how American officials got their hands on him, or how he came to appear in a Washington, D.C. court the next day. Officials close to the matter, however, told The Guardian that Mas’ud had been abducted by armed men loyal to Abdel-Ghani al-Kikli, the leader of an umbrella group of militias who Amnesty International has accused of war crimes. The militants allegedly transported him to a base in Misrata, a Libyan port city. Roughly two weeks later, despite their reported assurances to Mas’ud’s frantic family that he would be returned home soon, a “team of Americans” landed in Misrata, spiriting Mas’ud away on a private flight to Malta, according to The Guardian. Experts told the newspaper, which was unable to confirm all the details of the account, that the scenario was “highly plausible.”