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Aftermath of Pan Am Flight 103 plane crash in the village of Lockerbie on 22 December 1988 Alamy
Scotland
US federal judge delays Lockerbie bombing trial after discovery of new evidence
The bombing killed all 259 passengers and crew members on Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie.
A US FEDERAL judge has postponed a trial for a Libyan man charged over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, citing the discovery of new evidence that defence lawyers want to examine.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin on Wednesday for the federal trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi in Washington, DC.
His trial is the first in the US for the 21 December 1988 bombing.
US District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s order did not specify the nature of the newly discovered evidence.
Al-Marimi’s lawyers say prosecutors disclosed the new evidence to them on Saturday and added that their “constitutional and ethical obligations require the defence to investigate this development”.
The judge scheduled a 1 September hearing in Washington to discuss the status of the case.
Al-Marimi is charged in the US with making the bomb that downed the plane, killing 270 people, most of them Americans.
Flight 103 was 31,000ft over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, when a bomb in the plane’s forward cargo area exploded 38 minutes after take-off from London Heathrow Airport.
The flight was bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
The blast killed all 259 passengers and crew members and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. Citizens of 21 countries were killed, including 190 Americans and 43 from the UK.
Prosecutors allege Al-Marimi and others carried out the bombing at the direction of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was ousted 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 penalty of life in prison if convicted.
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 travelled from Frankfurt to London, where it was loaded onto Flight 103, according to investigators.
Two other Libyan intelligence agents were tried by a panel of Scottish judges at a former US military base in the Netherlands in 2000.
The tribunal convicted one official and acquitted the other, but the bombmaker’s possible identity remained a mystery for years.
Kara Weipz, board president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 and whose brother Richard Monetti was among the Syracuse University students killed, said her organisation had received no details about the new evidence that prompted the trial delay.
She called the delay a shock and noted that some victims’ relatives were already packing to head to the trial.
“At the same time, for almost 38 years we’ve been seeking the truth of what happened,” she said.
“If that’s what this is, then that’s a good thing, and this delay is worth it. It’s important to hear all the facts.”
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