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American prosecutors have asserted that a Libyan individual willingly admitted to being involved in operations against American targets, comprising the 1988's Pan Am Flight 103 incident and an unsuccessful conspiracy to target a American government official using a rigged coat.

Statement Details

Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi is reported to have acknowledged his participation in the killing of 270 victims when the aircraft was destroyed over the Scotland's community of Lockerbie, during interrogation in a Libyan holding center in the year 2012.

Identified as the suspect, the senior individual has claimed that multiple masked persons compelled him to deliver the confession after threatening him and his loved ones.

His attorneys are working to stop it from being employed as testimony in his legal proceedings in the US capital next year.

Legal Conflict

In response, lawyers from the US Department of Justice have said they can establish in legal proceedings that the confession was "voluntary, reliable and accurate."

The availability of the suspect's claimed statement was initially revealed in the year 2020, when the US declared it was charging him with creating and priming the IED employed on Flight 103.

Defendant's Allegations

The family man is charged of being a former colonel in Libya's intelligence service and has been in American detention since recent years.

He has entered not guilty to the allegations and is expected to stand trial at the federal court for the Washington DC in the coming months.

His attorneys are attempting to stop the trial from learning about the admission and have presented a request asking for it to be suppressed.

They contend it was acquired under pressure following the revolution which overthrew the Libyan leader in the early 2010s.

Claimed Coercion

They assert previous personnel of the leader's regime were being singled out with wrongful deaths, abductions and abuse when Mas'ud was taken from his home by armed individuals the next time.

He was moved to an unofficial detention center where other inmates were allegedly abused and harmed and was isolated in a small cell when three masked individuals presented him a solitary document of material.

His lawyers said its scripted information commenced with an command that he was to confess to the Pan Am Flight 103 incident and a separate violent act.

Significant Extremist Attacks

The defendant claims he was ordered to memorise what it said about the incidents and restate it when he was interrogated by another person the following day.

Fearing for his well-being and that of his family, he claimed he felt he had no alternative but to acquiesce.

In their answer to the legal team's petition, legal counsel from the US Department of Justice have said the tribunal was being petitioned to withhold "extremely relevant proof" of Mas'ud's culpability in "multiple substantial terrorist attacks against American people."

Government Responses

They say the defendant's account of events is implausible and false, and argue that the information of the admission can be verified by credible external evidence gathered over numerous years.

The government attorneys state Mas'ud and other ex- personnel of the dictator's secret service were kept in a covert prison managed by a faction when they were questioned by an seasoned Libyan police officer.

They argue that in the chaos of the post-revolution period, the center was "the protected place" for the suspect and the fellow agents, accounting for the violence and resistance sentiment widespread at the period.

Questioning Details

Based to the investigator who interviewed the suspect, the center was "efficiently operated", the prisoners were not bound and there were no evidence of torture or coercion.

The official has said that over two days, a composed and healthy Mas'ud detailed his role in the bombings of Flight 103.

The federal authorities has also stated he had admitted building a explosive which exploded in a Berlin nightclub in 1986, claiming the lives of three persons, including multiple American military personnel, and harming numerous more.

Additional Allegations

He is also alleged to have recounted his role in an attempt on the lives of an unnamed American foreign minister at a public event in the Asian country.

The defendant is said to have stated that an individual travelling the American official was wearing a rigged coat.

It was the defendant's task to activate the bomb but he decided not to act after finding out that the person bearing the coat did not understand he was on a suicide mission.

He opted "not to push the button" although his supervisor in the secret service being with him at the period and questioning what was {going on|happening|occurring