A federal judge on Monday postponed a trial in the United States for a former Libyan intelligence official charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, citing the discovery of new evidence that defense attorneys want to examine in the nearly 40-year-old case. Β
Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is charged in the U.S. with making the bomb that downed the airplane,Β killing 270 people, most of them Americans. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Wednesday for his federal trial in Washington, D.C. β the first trial in the U.S. for the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s order didn’t 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 defense to investigate this development.” Defense attorney Laura Koenig, an assistant federal public defender, declined to elaborate in response to an Associated Press inquiry.
The judge scheduled a Sept. 1 hearing in Washington to discuss the status of the case. Friedrich’s brief order cited the complex nature of the case, the newly discovered evidence and “the need for the defense to determine how best to defend this case” as reasons to postpone the trial.
Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via AP 
Flight 103 was 31,000 feet over Lockerbie when a bomb in the plane’s forward cargo area exploded 38 minutes after takeoff 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, where the wreckage destroyed an entire city block. Citizens of 21 countries were killed, including 190 Americans and 43 from the United Kingdom. The passengers included 35 Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad.
The FBI says that, prior to 9/11, the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing “was 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.
Kara Weipz, board president of the nonprofitΒ Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said her organization had received no details about the new evidence that prompted the trial delay. Weipz’s brother, Richard Monetti, was among the Syracuse students killed.
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,” 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.”
Prosecutors allege Al-Marimi and others carried out the bombing at the direction of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, 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. In February 2023, public defender Whitney Minter entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Two other Libyan intelligence agents were tried by a panel of Scottish judges on a former U.S. 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.
According to prosecutors, Al-Marimi worked for the Libyan intelligence service as an explosives expert from approximately 1973 to 2011, rising to the rank of colonel, and had ties to Libya and Tunisia.
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 traveled from Frankfurt to London, where it was loaded onto Flight 103, according to investigators.Β
Al-Marimi was first charged in 2020 and later indicted in December 2022 before he was transferred to U.S. custody.