A Libyan man who was cleared of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing has died, according to reports.
Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah stood trial alongside Abdelbaset al-Megrahi at a specially convened Scottish court in the Netherlands back in 2001. While al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing, Fhimah walked free after judges found him not guilty.
The Lockerbie disaster remains one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil. On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and a further 11 residents on the ground. The victims came from 21 different countries, with a large number of Americans among the dead.
Fhimah had worked as a Libyan Arab Airlines station manager in Malta. Prosecutors argued he had helped al-Megrahi smuggle the bomb onto the aircraft by misusing his airline access. The defence successfully challenged the evidence, and the three Scottish judges presiding over the case concluded there was insufficient proof to convict him.
The trial itself was a landmark moment in international law. Held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands under Scottish jurisdiction, it was a unique legal arrangement brokered after years of diplomatic wrangling between the UK, the US, and Libya over where any trial should take place.
Al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted of the bombing, was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. He returned to Libya and died in 2012. His conviction has remained controversial, with his family and some legal experts continuing to maintain he was innocent.
The Lockerbie case has never truly been closed. Scottish prosecutors have pursued further suspects over the years, and in 2022 a Libyan intelligence officer named Abu Agila Mohammad Masud was charged in the United States in connection with the attack. Scottish authorities have also sought to question him.
For the families of the 270 victims, the decades-long search for full accountability has been a painful and often frustrating journey. Many have felt that the complete truth about who ordered and planned the bombing has never been fully established in a court of law.
Fhimah had largely stayed out of the public eye following his acquittal and return to Libya. News of his death has brought the case back into focus once again, a reminder that the Lockerbie bombing continues to cast a long shadow more than 35 years on.