Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil on Wednesday told a Swedish newspaper that Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi ordered the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people.
Al-Jleil told Stockholm-based newspaper Expressen that Gaddafi was the person who gave the order to bomb Pan Am Flight 103, a daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
“I have evidence that Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing,” Al-Jleil was cited as saying by Expressen. “To hide this, he did everything in his power to get Megrahi back from Scotland.”
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of being behind the Lockerbie bombing, but was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds and returned to Libya.