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American government attorneys have claimed that a Libyan suspect voluntarily admitted to being involved in attacks against American targets, including the 1988's Lockerbie incident and an failed attempt to kill a American government official using a explosive-laden overcoat.

Confession Details

Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi is reported to have acknowledged his involvement in the murder of 270 people when Flight 103 was destroyed over the Scottish area of the region, during questioning in a Libyan detention facility in 2012.

Identified as the suspect, the 74-year-old has asserted that several masked men compelled him to make the statement after intimidating him and his loved ones.

His legal representatives are attempting to stop it from being employed as testimony in his trial in Washington next year.

Courtroom Battle

In answer, attorneys from the American justice department have declared they can establish in legal proceedings that the admission was "voluntary, credible and correct."

The presence of Mas'ud's claimed confession was originally disclosed in the year 2020, when the United States stated it was indicting him with building and activating the explosive device employed on Flight 103.

Defendant's Allegations

The defendant is alleged of being a former colonel in Libya's intelligence agency and has been in US custody since 2022.

He has stated not responsible to the charges and is due to stand trial at the federal court for the District of Columbia in spring.

The defendant's lawyers are working to block the trial from hearing about the admission and have presented a motion asking for it to be suppressed.

They argue it was obtained under pressure following the uprising which overthrew the former dictator in the early 2010s.

Claimed Intimidation

They say previous members of the ruler's administration were being singled out with illegal murders, kidnappings and torture when Mas'ud was seized from his residence by hostile men the following period.

He was moved to an unregistered prison facility where additional prisoners were allegedly beaten and mistreated and was by himself in a cramped room when multiple disguised persons presented him a single sheet of material.

His lawyers said its handwritten information began with an order that he was to admit to the Pan Am Flight 103 incident and an additional terrorist incident.

Substantial Terrorist Events

The defendant asserts he was ordered to memorise what it stated about the incidents and repeat it when he was interrogated by another person the following time.

Worrying for his well-being and that of his offspring, he stated he believed he had no alternative but to obey.

In their answer to the defendant's motion, legal counsel from the federal prosecutors have said the court was being petitioned to suppress "extremely pertinent evidence" of the suspect's culpability in "multiple substantial terror attacks targeting US citizens."

Prosecution Rebuttals

They claim the suspect's version of occurrences is unconvincing and inaccurate, and contend that the contents of the confession can be supported by reliable external evidence assembled over many years.

The prosecutors claim Mas'ud and fellow previous personnel of the former leader's intelligence agency were kept in a hidden detention facility operated by a militia when they were questioned by an experienced Libyan law enforcement official.

They assert that in the disorder of the post-uprising era, the location was "the most secure environment" for Mas'ud and the additional personnel, considering the hostility and opposition attitude prevailing at the moment.

Questioning Information

Based to the police officer who interrogated Mas'ud, the center was "efficiently operated", the inmates were not restrained and there were no evidence of torture or pressure.

The official has stated that over two days, a self-assured and fit defendant explained his participation in the attacks of Flight 103.

The FBI has also stated he had admitted creating a bomb which exploded in a German club in the mid-1980s, claiming the lives of three individuals, comprising several US military personnel, and wounding numerous additional.

Further Allegations

He is also reported to have described his participation in an conspiracy on the lives of an anonymous US foreign minister at a official ceremony in Pakistan.

The suspect is said to have explained that a person with the American figure was bearing a booby-trapped coat.

It was the defendant's mission to detonate the device but he decided not to act after discovering that the person carrying the item did not know he was on a fatal assignment.

He decided "not to push the button" even though his superior in the agency being alongside at the period and questioning what was {going on|happening|occurring