Lockerbie bombing trial delayed days before start over new evidence
A US federal judge postponed the trial of Libyan suspect Abu Agila Al-Marimi in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing after new evidence emerged. A hearing is set for 1 September.
US trial for Lockerbie bombing suspect adjourned after new evidence disclosed
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., postponed the US trial of a former Libyan intelligence official charged with constructing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, Google News MT reports. The adjournment came just days before jury selection was due to begin.
Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, now in his mid-70s, faces two counts of destruction of an aircraft resulting in death. The bombing on 21 December 1988 killed all 259 passengers and crew on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie, where falling wreckage levelled an entire city block — 270 victims in total, 190 of them American citizens.
US District Judge Dabney Friedrich issued the postponement order on Monday without specifying the nature of the newly discovered evidence. Prosecutors had disclosed the material to defence attorneys on the preceding Saturday. Defence lawyer Laura Koenig, an assistant federal public defender, stated that her team's "constitutional and ethical obligations require the defence to investigate this development" but declined to provide further detail to the Associated Press.
Friedrich's order cited three reasons for the delay: the complexity of the case, the newly discovered evidence, and "the need for the defence to determine how best to defend this case." A status hearing has been scheduled for 1 September in Washington.
The trial would have been the first held on US soil for the attack. Al-Marimi was initially charged in 2020, indicted in December 2022, and entered a not guilty plea in February 2023 through public defender Whitney Minter.
Flight 103: the attack
Flight 103 was cruising at 31,000 feet when a bomb concealed in the forward cargo area detonated 38 minutes after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport. The aircraft was bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Victims came from 21 countries; 43 were British nationals. Among those killed were 35 Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad.
The FBI has described the bombing, prior to the September 2001 attacks, as "one of the world's most lethal acts of air terrorism and one of the largest and most complex acts of international terrorism" ever investigated by the agency.
Malta link
Prosecutors allege Al-Marimi, who worked as an explosives expert for Libyan intelligence from approximately 1973 to 2011, reaching the rank of colonel, brought a suitcase bomb to an airport in Malta and handed it to co-conspirators. The bag was then routed via Frankfurt to London, where ground staff loaded it onto Flight 103.
The bombing is alleged to have been carried out on the orders of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was deposed and killed during the 2011 civil war. Two other Libyan intelligence officers were tried before a panel of Scottish judges at a former US military base in the Netherlands in 2000; one was convicted and one acquitted, while the identity of the bombmaker remained unresolved for years.
Victims' families react
Kara Weipz, board president of the nonprofit Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said her organisation had received no details about the new evidence. Her brother, Richard Monetti, was one of the Syracuse students killed in the attack. Weipz described the postponement as a shock, noting that some relatives had already begun travelling to Washington for the trial.
"At the same time, for almost 38 years we've been seeking the truth of what happened," Weipz 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."
Al-Marimi faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
Source: Google News MT