[This is the headline over a report published in today's edition of the Daily Mail. It reads in part:]
Lawyers for the Libyan accused of building the Lockerbie bomb have lodged papers claiming a ‘star witness’ for the prosecution is ‘not credible’.
The US government’s case against Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is largely based on his alleged confession to his involvement in the atrocity.
But his legal team want the case thrown out on the basis the ‘glacial pace’ of proceedings since he was extradited to the US in 2022 violates his rights.
They also say the ‘ongoing failure’ by his Libyan interrogator to provide original copies, allegedly written on carbon paper, support the call to ‘dismiss’ the charges.
Lawyers acting on behalf of Masud, as he is known, have now lodged papers with the court urging it to find the interrogator, known only as Jamal, ‘not credible’. Their claims centre around the alleged carbon copy provided by Jamal that the prosecution plans to use as evidence at his trial.
They also question why there are ‘underlines’ on the document that Jamal claims he did not make. Masud’s lawyers state that the American government ‘seems unwilling to recognise just how fatal these continued lies are for Jamal’s credibility’.
They add: ‘Perhaps it is because Mr Al-Marimi’s alleged confession was central to the government’s decision to charge Mr Al-Marimi and its prosecution of him that the government does not want to accept that its star witness is spinning yarns.’
Prosecutors say the defence ‘has offered no theory for why the officer would convey what he knew was a falsehood when he stood to gain nothing by doing so.’
But Masud’s legal team claim there are ‘possible reasons Jamal has lied’ including ‘acting at the behest of more powerful figures’, or he ‘thinks he can continue getting away with spinning tales in order to build rapport with a government that has worked to provide him personal benefits’.
Masud, an ex-Libyan intelligence officer, is due to stand trial in Washington DC.
He is alleged to have built the bomb that brought down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. (...)
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