A United States judge has scheduled a hearing in Washington, DC, to discuss the case against a former Libyan intelligence official accused of participating in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, an attack on a commercial aeroplane that killed everyone on board. The case concerns Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, who reportedly worked for Libya’s external security organisation at the time of the bombing. Federal prosecutors have accused Mas’ud of delivering the bomb that was later loaded onto Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988.
His trial is expected to be the first held in the US for the Lockerbie bombing. Hundreds of people, many of them Americans, were killed in the explosion. A court hearing is currently scheduled for Tuesday, but the trial has long been delayed.
Jury selection was set to begin last week. But US District Judge Dabney Friedrich unexpectedly postponed the trial, citing the discovery of new evidence. The delay is designed to give Mas’ud’s defence team time to review the new material.
It is yet another stunning development in a saga that has witnessed countless twists and turns. Here’s what you need to know: The US has accused Mas’ud of making the bomb that downed a Pan American Airways plane bound for New York City. Just over half an hour after it took off from London’s Heathrow airport, the flight exploded, killing all 259 people on board, including passengers and crew.
The plane was 9.45km (31,000 feet) over Scotland when the bomb went off, and the wreckage tumbled onto the town of Lockerbie, destroying an entire city block and killing 11 people on the ground. The death toll included citizens of 21 countries, including 190 Americans and 43 from the United Kingdom. The passengers included 35 students from New York’s Syracuse University who were returning from a semester abroad.
Nearly four decades later, the bombing remains the deadliest “terrorist” attack in UK history. Judge Friedrich did not specify the nature of the newly discovered evidence. According to The news agency, Mas’ud’s lawyers said federal prosecutors disclosed the new evidence to them days before jury selection was scheduled to begin.
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