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Lockerbie "Case is Not Closed": US
One Libyan Suspect Found Guilty of Murder in Lockerbie Bombing Case
A senior US official stressed that the Lockerbie bombing case was "not closed", as he welcomed a Scottish court's guilty verdict against one of two Libyans accused of the murder of 270 people.
"The investigation continues to determine who else may have been involved in this act of terrorism and to bring that individual or those individuals to justice," acting Deputy Attorney-General Bob Mueller told reporters early Wednesday.
"The case is not closed," he added.
For Leo Gallagher, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who led part of the investigation, the verdict elicited "a lot of mixed emotions."
Gallagher said he was pleased all the police work on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean "has proved to be accurate; that we have identified the person who is responsible for these 270 murders."
However, he added, on seeing the grief of the families of the victims, the outcome of the trial did not bring "a sense of satisfaction because there's still 270 innocent people who were murdered on that day."
Libyan suspect Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was found guilty of murder by a three-judge Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist, Netherlands. A second suspect, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.
Under Scottish law, a guilty verdict requires life imprisonment.
The two had been accused of planting a suitcase containing a bomb on a flight out of Malta tagged for transfer via Frankfurt in Germany on to Pan Am Flight 103 at London's Heathrow Airport.
The hearing was adjourned after the verdicts and the sentencing of al-Megrahi was postponed until 1300 GMT.
Bert Ammerman, a spokesman for the families of the US victims of the Lockerbie bombing whose own 36-year-old brother was killed in the attack, said the guilty verdict against al-Megrahi proved that the Libyan government was behind the terrorist act.
"That is state-sponsored terrorism," Ammerman told reporters outside a government building in New York where the verdict was broadcast live via closed-circuit television.
"That leads to the doorsteps of (Libyan leader Moamar) Khadafi. Khadafi is a coward, he is a rogue leader and Libya is a rogue nation," the spokesman said.
"I would hope that President (George W.) Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell would meet immediatly and make the following announcement: that Lybia will remain a rogue nation and that Khadafi is a rogue leader, and they will have terrorist classification until he is out as leader."
In all, 85 relatives of the Lockerbie victims gathered in Manhattan with the State Department's help to hear the verdict from the Netherlands that would close a 12-year judicial process.
"Al-Megrahi was an agent of the libyan intelligence," Ammerman said. "He didn't do it by himself. But I doubt that our political leaders have the substance and the backbone to do what's right, and that is to hold Khadafi personaly responsible for this."
"We got some justice today. One individual, hopefully, is going to spend the rest of his natural life behind bars in Scotland," he added heaping praise on the scottish judicial process.
"No one can question the integrity of what took place. So our loved one did not die in vain," Ammerman said.
"Today is a day of satisfaction," he added. "True justice, though, I believe will never be served because the person that should be brought to justice is the leader of Libya and I just don't think that's going to happen."
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