Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah, cleared in the Lockerbie plane bombing case, has died aged 70.
The death was announced by Libyan Airlines, which released a statement on Facebook expressing condolences to the family. Fhimah, a former employee of the airline in Malta, had returned to Libya after the 2001 acquittal of the 1988 bombing that claimed 270 lives. His funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Tripoli.
Fhimah was one of two Libyan men charged in 1991 by Scotland and the United States with involvement in the Pan‑Air Flight 103 bombing. While the Scottish court in the Netherlands convicted Abdulbasset Al Megrahi in 2001 and later released him by compassionate grounds in 2012, Fhimah was found not guilty. The outcome left a lingering question of possible double jeopardy, given new evidence surfaced in 2022.
In 2022, an FBI report implicated a third Libyan, Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al‑Marimi, who claimed he had pledged to join the plot. Although Al‑Marimi denied the confession and said it was made under duress, his pending trial in Washington may revive scrutiny of Fhimah's earlier acquittal under the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011.
Despite the renewed attention to the Lockerbie case, officials confirmed that Fhimah’s death was not connected to the scheduled postponement of Al‑Marimi’s trial. The tragedy of the 1988 bombing remains a complex chapter in international law, highlighting both the advances in forensic investigations and the unresolved tensions between justice and political considerations.
