Samir Shegwara, a Libyan writer and politician, has been arrested on national security charges after publishing documents that allegedly connect his country’s intelligence service to the infamous Lockerbie bombing. The arrest came two days after the BBC reported that the files could serve as crucial evidence in the trial of Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, a Libyan suspect accused of constructing the bomb that caused Pan Am Flight 103 to crash in December 1988, killing 270 people.
Masud has denied involvement in the bombing and is facing trial in Washington. The documents also link Libyan intelligence agents to the 1989 destruction of a French airliner over the Sahara Desert, which claimed another 170 lives. Shegwara, who obtained the documents from Libya’s former intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi, after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, published the material in the book The Murderer Who Must Be Saved, co-authored with French journalists Karl Laske and Vincent Nouzille.
The documents were first made public in France earlier this year, leading to Shegwara’s arrest on charges of possessing classified materials without legal authorization. His legal troubles stem from his alleged unauthorized possession of these security documents, which have raised serious questions about Libya’s involvement in multiple international tragedies.
