MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Victoria Cummock’s husband, the father of her three children, was among the 270 who died after a bomb exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, just north of the England-Scotland border.
John B. Cummock, 38, of Coral Gables, and 258 others boarded the Boeing 747 at London’s Heathrow Airport and were headed for New York City when the bomb blew a basketball-sized hole in the aircraft’s main body.
The plane broke apart and killed 11 more people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. British investigators later found the bomb was in the shell of a radio-cassette recorder in a suitcase.
“I wasn’t sure if within my lifetime we would be able to see the day,” said Victoria Cummock on Monday from her home in Miami-Dade County about the arraignment of Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former Lybian intelligence officer.
Victoria Cummock, who founded The Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocated for the victims, said Mas’ud’s arraignment was at the Elijah Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C.
“He has claimed responsibility for actually making the bomb and getting it to the location where it was put on Pan Am 103,” Victoria Cummock said.
Mas’ud was in U.S. custody after a militia group in Libya kidnapped him last month, the BBC first reported on Sunday. Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr announced the charges against him on Dec. 21, 2020.
“It’s the victims’ families’ fervent wish that U.S. criminal trial proceedings begin immediately. Justice delayed is justice denied,” Victoria Cummock said. “The victims’ families are keenly aware that after 34 years, informants and witnesses died, memories fade, and evidence can deteriorate or disappear.”
Victoria Cummock said she was grateful that President Joe Biden was bringing Mas’ud to U.S. justice. She said she and many of the families of the 190 American victims had “felt betrayed” by the U.S. authorities’ lack of action for over three decades.
“This was the love of my life and I had promised him that I would make sure, until my dying breath that I was going to do what I could to pursue justice, as have many of the other family members because this has not been my quest alone,” Cummock said about her decades of advocacy work.
Pan American, founded in 1927 in Key West, ceased operations in 1991. Scotland convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, of 270 counts of murder in 2001. Scotland had also identified and arrested Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, a Libyan intelligence officer, but released him for insufficient evidence.
“They had found Fhimah’s diary where he had written that he was going to Malta and was involved in the operation, but since nobody could corroborate that they had seen him write in that diary, they couldn’t admit that into court,” Cummock said. “Whereas in U.S. courts they can grab that diary and have handwriting experts compare.”
Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing in 2003. Cummock said Muammar Gaddafi, an Islamic socialist who ruled Libya for more than four decades, was suspected of ordering the attack. In 2009, Scotland released Megrahi, who was sentenced to life, after a cancer diagnosis in 2009.
In Libya, Gaddafi was killed in 2011, in Sirte, and Megrahi died in 2012, in Tripoli.
FRONTLINE filmmaker Ken Dornstein, who was 19 years old when his older brother David Dornstein died during the bombing, traveled to Libya to investigate the bombing and PBS aired his findings in “My Brother’s Bomber,” a three-part series, in 2015.
The list of the 189 American victims also included 35 students from Syracuse University, which set up a research center to archive evidence of the attack. Cummock said knowing Mas’ud will stand trial in Washington, D.C., was “the first sign of hope” for U.S. justice.
“Our hope is that we will be able to find out what he knows and hopefully he’ll be able to identify other co-conspirators, so we can be able to bring them to justice.”
Watch the news conference (Facebook Live)
Historic Timeline
Dec. 5, 1988: U.S. Embassy in Finland receives bomb threats against a Pan Am flight
Dec. 21, 1988: Bomb explodes about 38 minutes after takeoff
April 3, 1989: Victims’ families protest outside of the White House and meet with former President George H.W. Bush.
Aug. 4, 1989: H.W. Bush creates the commission on aviation security and terrorism.
May 15, 1990: The commission issues a report with recommendations for improvements in aviation security.
Oct. 23, 1990: U.S. Senate passes The Aviation Security Improvement Act
Nov. 15, 1991: Scotland indicts two Lybians, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, on 270 counts of murder and for violating Britain’s Aviation Security Act of 1982.
Jan. 21, 1992: The United Nations security council approved a resolution ordering Libya to surrender Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, former Libyan intelligence agents.
Dec. 21, 1994: Libya requests that Scotland hold the trial at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands.
March 23, 1995: The FBI offers a $4 million reward for the two suspects.
Aug. 5, 1996: Former President Bill Clinton signs legislation to boycott Libyan oil.
Aug. 24, 1998: Scotland agrees to Libya’s request for a trial at the Hague.
April 5, 1999: Libya surrenders the two suspects in the Netherlands.
April 6, 1999: Megrahi and Fhimah are arraigned.
May 25, 1999: U.S. indicts Megrahi and Fhimah
May 3, 2000: The Scottish trial begins with a three-judge panel.
Jan. 23, 2001: Megrahi is found guilty. The case against Fhimah is dropped.
Jan. 23, 2002: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi appeals his conviction.
May 28, 2002: Scottish judges refuse his appeal.
Aug. 15, 2003: Libya accepts responsibility for the bombing.
Aug. 20, 2009: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was released on “compassionate grounds” after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He died on May 20, 2012.