Police officers prepare the evacuation for a bomb defusing operation in the district of Wilhelmsburg in Hamburg, Germany on Monday. A walker had found the 114-kilogram World War II bomb on a construction site, and it was successfully defused. Photo: AFP

 A Libyan man accused of making the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people, has been taken into US custody, authorities said on Sunday.

Abu Agila Mohammad Masud was charged by the United States two years ago for the Lockerbie bombing. He had previously been held in Libya for alleged involvement in a 1986 attack on a Berlin nightclub. The US Justice Department confirmed in a statement that Masud was in American custody, following an announcement by Scottish prosecutors, without saying how the suspect ended up in US hands.

A department spokesperson said Masud was expected to make an initial appearance, at a time yet to be specified, in a federal court in the US capital.

According to The New York Times, Masud was arrested by the FBI and is in the process of being extradited to the United States to face prosecution.

Only one individual has so far been prosecuted for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on December 21, 1988 - which remains the deadliest terror attack on British soil.

The bombing killed 259 people including 190 Americans on board, and 11 people on the ground.