The White House released a statement Thursday in observance of the 35th anniversary of the bombing.
Pan Am Flight 103 was en route from London to New York on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb detonation on board caused it to crash in Lockerbie, Scotland. The resulting explosion killed 273 people, including all 258 aboard and at least 15 more on the ground. According to the Royal Air Force, the crash destroyed about 40 houses.
A number of Americans, including 38 exchange students from Syracuse University in New York, were on the flight. Also on the flight was the U.N. commissioner for Namibia, who was flying to New York to sign a historic peace pact for southern Africa.
"Their loss was a tragedy that reverberated around the globe -- and one that is still felt today by all those families and friends who continue to grieve for their loved ones," Biden said in the statement, adding the U.S. will never waiver in its pursuit of terrorists at home and abroad.
"In the decades since this horrific attack, the United States and our Scottish partners have not stopped in our pursuit of justice," he said.
Two Libyans, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, were brought to face trial in 2000 over their suspected involvement in the bombing. Megrahi was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, but Fahima was freed of all charges.
Megrahi's minimum sentence was 27 years, which he appealed while maintaining his innocence. He lost two appeals but was released in 2009 on "compassionate grounds" after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi died in 2012. He was the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing.
Last year, the U.S. took custody of another key suspect in the bombing. Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud was suspected of making the bomb that exploded on board Pan Am Flight 103.
Mas'ud in February pled not guilty to three federal charges -- two of aircraft destruction resulting in death and one of destruction of a vehicle used in foreign commerce by an explosive.
A Justice Department criminal complaint in 2020 said Mas'ud admitted to building the bomb that was used to bring down the plane. He allegedly carried the bomb in a suitcase to Malta's Luqa airport, where it was loaded onto an aircraft with a timer that Mas'ud admitted to setting to go off in eleven hours.
Mas'ud faces life in prison if convicted.
Connecticut man sentenced in attempt to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS
Washington DC (UPI) Dec 21, 2023 -
A Connecticut man was convicted Thursday for attempting to travel to Syria to support ISIS.
Kevin Iman McCormick, 30, of Hamden, Conn., was sentenced to 144 months in prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised releases, for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, according to a court release.
According to court documents, McCormick made several statements in 2019 to others expressing his desire to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
In August 2019, McCormick told members of a Muslim community center "we should support ISIS" and "jihad is the way to go."
Court documents also stated McCormick told someone "I gotta fight, bro, because those people ... and [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], they fought for me, bro. I know it, I can feel it in my heart. So it's my time to fight ... It just is what it is, bro, it's just my -- it's just my time to go, bro."
He also reportedly told the person that "it's gonna be very hard to kill me."
McCormick was arrested on Oct. 21, 2019, when he attempted to board a plane from Connecticut to Canada. He pleaded guilty on Jan. 12 to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
It was not the first time McCormick attempted to leave the country to fight for ISIS.
In the weeks prior to his arrest, he attempted to board a flight from Connecticut to Jamaica but was prevented from doing so by the Department of Homeland Security. He then reportedly told a person he wanted to travel to Jamaica and from there to Syria to join ISIS. Days later, he made a video in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS and its then-leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, according to court documents.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force investigated the case with assistance from the Transportation Security Administration.
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