Lockerbie bombing trial delayed in US as new evidence emerges | US News

The trial of a Libyan man charged over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 has been postponed following the discovery of new evidence.

Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is charged with making the bomb that downed the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December – killing 270 people, mostly Americans.

His trial will be the first in the US for the bombing and jury selection had been scheduled to begin in Washington on Wednesday.

The order to delay the trial didn’t specify the nature of the newly discovered evidence but cited the complex nature of the new material and the “need for the defence to determine how best to defend this case”.

Al-Marimi’s lawyers said prosecutors disclosed the new evidence to them on Saturday and added their “constitutional and ethical obligations require the defence to investigate this development”.

The case will return to court on 1 September to discuss next steps.

Flight 103 was 31,000 feet (9.45 kilometres) over Lockerbie when a bomb in the plane’s forward cargo area exploded 38 minutes after takeoff from Heathrow Airport.

The flight was bound for New York.

The blast killed all 259 passengers and crew members and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, where the wreckage destroyed an entire block.

Citizens of 21 countries were killed, including 190 Americans and 43 from the UK.

The passengers also included 35 Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad.

It remains the worst terror attack in British history.

Prosecutors allege Al-Marimi and others carried out the bombing at the direction of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was overthrown and killed during a 2011 civil war.

Al-Marimi, now in his mid-70s, is charged with two counts of destruction of an aircraft resulting in death. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

He worked for the Libyan intelligence service from about 1973 to 2011, rising to the rank of colonel, prosecutors allege.

‘Absolutely floored’

Kara Weipz, board president of the non-profit Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said her organisation had received no details about the new evidence.

Ms Weipz’s brother Richard Monetti was among the Syracuse students killed.

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland’s Breakfast programme on Tuesday, she said: “I was floored today when I found out, absolutely floored.”

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She added: “As we’re processing the shock, there’s a lot of, ‘I can’t believe this is happening’.

“There’s so much anxiety leading into this week and obviously with jury selection this week, and with the anticipation of opening statements next week, people were getting ready to travel at the end of the week – and then knowing that all of a sudden it’s not happening right now, it’s just we have to live in this anxiety for however long until we actually get to trial.”

Fraught road to justice

Two other Libyan intelligence agents were tried over the bombing by a panel of Scottish judges on a former US military base in the Netherlands in 2000.

The tribunal convicted one official and acquitted the other, but the bombmaker’s identity remained a mystery for years.

Prosecutors believe he brought a suitcase containing a bomb to an airport in Malta and gave it to co-conspirators for a flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

The suitcase then travelled from Frankfurt to London, where it was loaded onto flight 103, investigators said.

Al-Marimi was arrested in Libya in 2022 and brought to the US.

Prosecutors allege Al-Marimi confessed to Libyan police officers in 2012 of having a role in the bombing.

Legal complexities have led to years of delays.