U.S. authorities have taken into custody a Libyan man accused of being involved with making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people including two West Virginians.
Valerie Canady in seat 24K and Harry Bainbridge in seat 4B were the West Virginians who died on that flight.
Canady, 25, was a Morgantown native who worked as an accountant in London for the Pittsburgh-based H.J. Heinz Co. She was on the flight with plans to return home and surprise her parents with the news that she and her fiance, Eric Schorr, were to be married over Christmas.
Bainbridge, 34, was a Fairmont native and an attorney for PepsiCo, returning home to New York after a business trip to Rome. He had been looking forward to Christmas and a reunion with his pregnant wife, Dona.
The plane had taken off from London and was on its way to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
A bomb in the forward cargo area blew apart the Boeing 747-121 at 7:02 p.m. local time on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crewmembers on board. Large sections of the aircraft crashed onto residential areas of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing an additional 11 people on the ground.
Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi was charged two years ago by U.S. authorities for his alleged involvement in the bomb making with then-U.S. Attorney William Barr saying citizens of the United States and other countries “were murdered by terrorists operating on behalf of the former Muamar Qaddafi regime.”
The alleged bomb maker was just now taken into custody for two criminal counts, including destruction of an aircraft resulting in death.
A statement issued Sunday morning by The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed he was taken into custody and indicated he is expected to make an initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The airplane bombing prompted a decades-long, international pursuit of the culprits.
In 1991, criminal charges were filed against two Libyan intelligence operatives, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi (Megrahi) and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah (Fhimah) with their roles in the bombing.
Megrahi served more than 10 years in prison for the bombings, but was released from prison in August 2009. He had advanced prostate cancer and died in 2012.
Fhimah went to trial but was acquitted because of evidence that he was in Sweden at the time of the bombing.
According to the affidavit filed with the criminal complaint against accused bomb-maker Masud, he was directed in 1988 by a Libyan intelligence official to fly to Malta with a prepared suitcase. He did so, according to prosecutors, and was met by Megrahi and Fhimah.
Megrahi and Fhimah instructed Masud to set the timer on the device in the suitcase for the following morning, the prosecutors said, so that the explosion would occur exactly eleven hours later.
According to the affidavit, Megrahi and Fhimah were both at the airport on the morning of Dec. 21, 1988, and Masud handed the medium Samsonite suitcase to Fhimah after being given a signal. Fhimah then placed the suitcase on the conveyor belt, and Masud left.
About three months after that, according to prosecutors, Masud and Fhimah met with Qaddafi, and others who thanked them for carrying out a great national duty against the Americans, and Qaddafi added that the operation was a total success.
Canady, the 25-year-old victim from Morgantown had a scholarship, the Valerie Canady Charitable Trust Foundation, named in her memory to support students pursuing education in music, the arts, theatre, and dance.
Harry Bainbridge’s wife, Dona, was pregnant and carrying their son, Harry Jr.
Harry Jr. was born 11 weeks after his father died over Lockerbie. He is now an actor and filmmaker.