Relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing 27 years ago have welcomed the identification of two Libyans as suspects in the investigation.
The pair are suspected of involvement along with Abdelbaset al Megrahi – the only person convicted over the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died.
Scottish prosecutors said they want the suspects to be interviewed by police.
Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has described it as an “interesting and potentially positive” development.
The Crown Office has not confirmed the suspects’ identities, but they have been named in reports as Abu Agila Mas’ud and Abdullah al-Senoussi.
Megrahi, who was released from jail by the Scottish government in 2009 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, died in 2012 protesting his innocence.
Scotland’s Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC recently met US attorney general Loretta Lynch in Washington and they have requested assistance from Libyan authorities for Scottish police and the FBI to interview the two suspects in Tripoli.
Both of the newly-identified suspects were reportedly imprisoned in Libya after the 2011 fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and Senoussi has been sentenced to death. Senoussi is said to have been Gaddafi’s brother in law and head of intelligence.
The crimes they have been charged with in Libya are not related to the Lockerbie bombing.
The Pan Am flight was on its way from London to New York when it exploded above Lockerbie, in southern Scotland, on the evening of December 21 1988, killing everyone on board and 11 people on the ground.
Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder following a trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001 and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years.
Last year, exactly 26 years on from the atrocity, the Lord Advocate led a delegation of Scottish law officers who attended a memorial at the Arlington cemetery in Washington.
Mr Mulholland, who addressed the service, said no Crown Office investigator or prosecutor has raised a concern about the evidence in the case and he vowed to track down Megrahi’s accomplices.
He has previously said the idea that Megrahi acted alone was ‘’risible’’.
The investigation into the bombing remains a joint one between US and Scottish prosecutors, Police Scotland and the FBI.