Editorial: Arrest promises justice may finally arrive for Pan Am bombing

Tribune-Review | Tuesday, December 13, 2022 6:01 a.m.

A police officer walks by the nose of Pan Am flight 103 in a field near the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, where it lay after a bomb aboard exploded, killing a total of 270 people, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1988.

Justice can appear in many forms.

It can come swiftly. It can be sporadic. It might be measured or thorough or haphazard. It might come hand in hand with rage or sorrow, or it might be businesslike and perfunctory.

But what is important is that justice shows up, however it appears.

Since Dec. 21, 1988, families including Glenn and Carole Johnson of Hempfield have been waiting for justice to arrive.

The Johnsons lost their daughter, Beth Ann, 21, in Pan Am Flight 103 when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.

She was one of 259 passengers and crew killed in the bomb attack, 190 of them Americans. Many of them were students like Beth Ann, who attended Seton Hill College and was returning from studying abroad.

• Libyan accused in Lockerbie bombing appears in U.S. court • Pan Am Flight 103 parents say bomber’s arrest ‘bittersweet’ • With suspect in custody, spotlight returns to 1988 bombing

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi took responsibility for the attack but claimed it wasn’t at his direction. His former justice minister told a Swedish newspaper otherwise in 2011, claiming there was proof Gadhafi gave the order. The deposed Gadhafi was killed in 2011.

It took 13 years to see Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi convicted, with 270 counts of murder translating to a life sentence in 2001. After two appeals and a compassionate release granted by the Scottish government for his terminal cancer, al-Megrahi died in Libya in 2012.

Another Libyan, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was acquitted.

But on Sunday, the Justice Department finally notified the Johnsons that Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi was in U.S. custody. On Monday, he was in a U.S. courthouse for the first steps in the federal charges he will face for the Pan Am bombing.

It was a call the Johnsons have waited to receive. Masud stands accused of building the explosive device that took down the plane.

Justice in the Pan Am case is not here yet. The court system, despite promises of “a speedy trial,” is seldom rapid. Masud’s path is just beginning.

However, his arrest and appearance is more than just a check mark on a list for the family members of the Flight 103 victims. It is a statement that while justice can be delayed, sometimes it cannot be denied.