Scottish prosecutors: 2 Libyans are Lockerbie bomb suspects

Scottish prosecutors said Thursday they have identified two Libyans as suspects in the1988 bombing of a passenger jet over the town of Lockerbie, and want to interview them in Tripoli.

Scotland's Crown Office said that Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had agreed "that there is a proper basis in law in Scotland and the United States to entitle Scottish and U.S. investigators to treat two Libyans as suspects in the continuing investigation into the bombing of flight Pan Am 103."

In a statement, it said the two countries were asking Libyan authorities to help Scottish detectives and FBI officers interview the suspects in Tripoli.

The unnamed Libyans are suspected of involvement with Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the attack.

A bomb blew up the New York-bound Boeing 747 as it flew over Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard the plane and 11 on the ground. Many of the victims were U.S. college students flying home for Christmas.

Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, was convicted in 2001 of planting the bomb. He was freed from a Scottish jail in 2009 on compassionate grounds because he had cancer — to the outrage of many victims' families — and died in Libya in 2012.

The case is still open, and after the 2011 fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Britain asked Libya's new rulers to help fully investigate. But the country has since been wracked by chaos and political violence.

The Associated Press