SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — Richard Monetti, or Rick, as his parents in Cherry Hill called him, was a Syracuse University student studying abroad in London in 1988. He and 34 other students were set to return home for Christmas at the end of the semester, but they never made it.
They were aboard Pan Am Flight 103 when it was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground. On Sunday, nearly 35 years later, a Libyan intelligence official accused of making the bomb in the international act of terrorism was taken into U.S. custody.
Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi will face federal charges in Washington, the Justice Department said Sunday. His arrest marks a milestone in the decades-old investigation into the attack.
American authorities in December 2020 announced charges against Mas'ud, who was in Libyan custody at the time. Though he is the third Libyan intelligence official charged in the U.S. in connection with the attack, he would be the first to appear in an American courtroom for prosecution.
The New York-bound Pan Am flight exploded over Lockerbie less than an hour after takeoff from London on Dec. 21, 1988. Citizens from 21 different countries were killed. The 35 students were among 190 Americans on board.
Monetti, a junior at the time, had a journal with him, which was found in the wreckage. In it, he wrote a “philosophy of life” that included the phrase “don’t ever give up.”
His family never did.
Bob and Eileen Monetti, along with the families of other victims, have put a lot of pressure on federal and international investigators in the decades since the bombing. Their daughter and Rick’s sister, Kara, was the first to inform them on Sunday that the suspect was in U.S. custody.
“This was before I had my coffee,” said Bob, adding that the news is still sinking in. Eileen said they’ve been so disappointed for so long and have tried not to get their hopes too high in their quest for answers.
“We’d been getting a lot of, ‘Well, we’re working on it, we’re working on it, we’re working on it.’ And at some point, we were all getting very frustrated because we’re tired of ‘we’re working on it.’ Give us some information,” said Eileen.
“[Rick] said ‘don’t ever give up.’ And that’s how I feel — we have not given up,” she continued. “When your loved one, especially a child, is murdered, you can’t give up on it.”
Stephanie Bernstein, a Maryland woman whose husband, Michael, was among the 270 victims — he was a Justice Department official returning on the flight from government business — said the news was “surreal” because there had been times in the past two years when victims’ families had been told that “it looks promising” only to find that was not the case.
“At first I thought I was dreaming when I was told what had happened, but it’s happened, and I’m incredibly grateful that this man will be tried in the United States,” Bernstein said in an interview with AP.
Rick was a junior at Syracuse, studying journalism. He was also a graduate of KYW Newsradio’s Newstudies student reporter program. Every year, KYW Newsradio awards a $2,000 scholarship to a student in the Newstudies program in Rick’s memory.
“Most people think that you can’t do anything,” Eileen added, that “once something happens, you are powerless. And that is not true.”
Decades-long investigation
The bombing was the single deadliest terror attack in the history of the United Kingdom. It laid bare the threat of international terrorism more than a decade before the Sept. 11 attacks. The attack produced global investigations and punishing sanctions while spurring demands for accountability from victims of those killed.
The university’s current chancellor, Kent Syverud, said in a statement that the arrest was a significant development in the long process “to bring those responsible for this despicable act to justice.”
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The announcement of charges against Mas'ud on Dec. 21, 2020, came on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing and in the final days of the tenure of then-Attorney General William Barr, who in his first stint as attorney general in the early 1990s had announced criminal charges against two other Libyans intelligence officials.
The Libyan government initially balked at turning over the two men, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, before ultimately surrendering them for prosecution before a panel of Scottish judges sitting in the Netherlands as part of a special arrangement.
The Justice Department said Mas'ud would appear soon in a federal court in Washington, where he faces two criminal counts related to the explosion.
U.S. officials did not say how Mas'ud came to be taken into U.S. custody, but late last month, local Libyan media reported that Mas'ud had been kidnapped by armed men on Nov. 16 from his residence in Tripoli, the capital. That reporting cited a family statement that accused Tripoli authorities of being silent on the abduction.
Torn by civil war since 2011, Libya is divided between rival governments in the east and west, each backed by international patrons and numerous armed militias on the ground. Militia groups have amassed great wealth and power from kidnappings and their involvement in Libya’s lucrative human trafficking trade.
A breakthrough in the investigation came when U.S. officials in 2017 received a copy of an interview that Mas'ud, a longtime explosives expert for Libya’s intelligence service, had given to Libyan law enforcement in 2012 after being taken into custody following the collapse of the government of the country’s leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
In that interview, U.S. officials said, Mas'ud admitted building the bomb in the Pan Am attack and working with two other conspirators to carry it out. He also said the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Gadhafi thanked him and other members of the team after the attack, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
That affidavit said Mas'ud told Libyan law enforcement that he flew to Malta to meet al-Megrahi and Fhimah. He handed Fhimah a medium-sized Samsonite suitcase containing a bomb, having already been instructed to set the timer so that the device would explode exactly 11 hours later, according to the document. He then flew to Tripoli, the FBI said.
Al-Megrahi was convicted in the Netherlands while Fhimah was acquitted of all charges. Al-Megrahi was given a life sentence, but Scottish authorities released him on humanitarian grounds in 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He later died in Tripoli, still protesting his innocence.
In announcing charges against Mas'ud in 2020, Barr said the U.S. and Scotland would use “every feasible and appropriate means” to bring him to trial.
“At long last, this man responsible for killing Americans and many others will be subject to justice for his crimes,” Barr said at the time.
Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service on Sunday announced the arrest as well, saying in a statement that "the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect is in U.S. custody.”
The statement added that “Scottish prosecutors and police, working with U.K. government and U.S. colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with al-Megrahi to justice."
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