THE Libyan accused of making the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people, has arrived in the United States and will appear in court today, Justice Department officials said.

Abu Agila Mohammad Masud was charged by the United States two years ago for the Lockerbie bombing, in which Americans made up a majority of the victims.

After arriving in the United States, he was taken to a Justice Department facility in Alexandria, Virginia, for initial processing, where his mugshot was taken.

On Monday afternoon at 1pm, he will appear in federal court in Washington for an initial hearing.

On Sunday, Scottish prosecutors announced that he was in American hands, but provided no details how he had been transferred from Libya.

Masud had previously been held in Libya for his alleged involvement in a 1986 attack on a Berlin nightclub.

Only one person has so far been convicted for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on December 21, 1988, which remains the deadliest terror attack on British soil.

The New York-bound aircraft was blown up 38 minutes after it took off from London, sending the main fuselage plunging to the ground in the town of Lockerbie and spreading debris over a vast area.

The bombing killed 259 people including 190 Americans on board, and 11 people on the ground.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi spent seven years in a Scottish prison after his conviction in 2001.

He died in Libya in 2012, always maintaining his innocence. – AFP, December 12, 2022.