Lockerbie Bombing Trial Postponed Days Before Start as New Evidence Emerges
By Kanishka Singh and Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday put off the trial of a Libyan intelligence officer charged in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, adding another delay to a case that has long moved through the courts under the shadow of a decades-old international attack.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington said newly surfaced evidence and material located abroad required more time for the defense to review before jury selection, which had been scheduled to begin Wednesday. She did not set a new trial date, but scheduled a hearing for Sept. 1 to discuss next steps.
The defendant, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, is a former Libyan intelligence operative now in his mid-70s. Prosecutors say he confessed in 2012 to playing a role in the bombing and later accused him of building the time-delayed bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
Mas'ud has pleaded not guilty to two counts of destruction of an aircraft resulting in death. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
The case centers on one of the deadliest attacks involving the United States before Sept. 11. The Boeing 747, bound for New York, exploded minutes after taking off from London's Heathrow Airport, killing all 259 people on board, including 190 Americans, along with 11 people on the ground in Scotland.
For decades, the bombing defined Libya's place in the world. Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya at the time, became an international pariah, and his government formally accepted responsibility in 2003. But the attack has never stopped weighing on the families of those killed, many of whom have waited more than three decades for a U.S. courtroom to take up the case.
Mas'ud's path to trial has been unusually complex. He was arrested in Libya and brought to the United States in 2022. His lawyers have challenged the credibility of the prosecution's evidence, particularly an alleged confession to a Libyan police officer in 2012, a year after rebel forces toppled Gaddafi. That confession and other issues have produced years of legal wrangling in federal court in Washington.
The exact nature of the newly discovered evidence was not spelled out in the judge's order. Friedrich said the defense needed time to examine it and consider how best to proceed, the latest sign that the case's route from Lockerbie to Libya to a U.S. court remains a difficult one.
Prosecutors allege that Mas'ud assembled the bomb inside a suitcase that was checked in Malta and later carried into the hold of Pan Am 103 at Heathrow. It was a plot that anticipated a new era of global terrorism, and its aftermath shaped U.S. and international security policy for years.
The postponement means a trial that was expected to begin within days will now wait for another hearing. For those following the case, the delay is a reminder of how slowly the pursuit of accountability can move, even when the evidence spans continents and decades.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Sonali Paul)