The long wait for answers over Lockerbie bombing grows longer

BBC News

2 days ago

Major television productions are bringing the story of the Lockerbie bombing to a new global audience, but the real life drama of the trial of a new Libyan suspect has been delayed once more.Abu Agila Mohammed Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi, known as Masud, had been due to face a Washington jury last month, accused of making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 and killed 270 people.The 12 May starting date was abandoned because of problems with his health and the complexity of the case, and the trial is now scheduled to start in April, 2026..The date was set at the District of Columbia District Court, where Masud listened with the help of a translator and was expressionless throughout.
After the hearing, relatives of American victims of the bombing told BBC News of their disappointment that the trial is now scheduled to start 50 weeks later than originally planned.Kara Weipz is the president of the US group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 and lost her 20-year-old brother Richard Monetti on the plane."I'm just going to pray that it stays at 20 April," she said. "I was 15 when this happened, and I'm 52 now and among the relatives I'm considered young."A lot of our family members are in their seventies and eighties and unfortunately, we lose them weekly or monthly now."The travesty in all of this that they're not seeing the justice that they've worked 37 years to see."That's what concerns us the most, that this trial will come around and we'll have lost more family members."
Victoria Cummock's husband John was coming home from a business trip to Europe a day earlier than planned, to surprise his family.The founder of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation, Mrs Cummock said: "We've lived through 36 years of delays and postponements simply because this is an international case filled with politics."Thirty six years with seven different administrations in America have really collided with the families' search for accountability and justice."It's no surprise that our mission to hold them to account is being delayed."Mrs Cummock added she was concerned that President Trump's ban on Libyan citizens travelling to the US could affect the trial.She said: "It just seems like it's a very slow journey to getting this case started."
Masud's health problems
Masud has been in US custody since December 2022 and has pled not guilty to the charges.The Tunisian-born Libyan is in his seventies and is understood to have diabetes and heart problems.His family in Libya has already expressed concerns over the delays to the case, saying he's an innocent man.The new trial date was fixed after a joint motion submitted by the prosecution and the defence, both of whom raised the international nature of the evidence and witnesses.A series of crucial legal arguments will have to be resolved before the trial can go ahead, with the judge Dabney Friedrich describing the 20 April date as "tentative."Those will include the admissibility of a confession Masud is alleged to have made while in custody in 2012, following the collapse of Colonel Gaddafi's regime.
Another complication is the fact that new information on the case is still emerging, almost four decades after the attack.A book published in France revealed the existence of documents said to have been retrieved from the archives of the Libyan intelligence service, of which Masud is alleged to have been a member.If proved genuine, those documents detail his involvement in preparations for the attack on Pan Am 103.It's more than 24 years since the first Lockerbie trial, when three Scottish judges convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdulbasset al-Megrahi of playing a key role in the plot.
Megrahi was jailed for life but released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government in 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died three years later at home in Tripoli.His release infuriated many of the American relatives, which is why they have set so much store on the trial of Masud, the first suspect to face an American court over Lockerbie.They believe it will deliver the justice they were denied by the Scottish legal system.The bombing remains the worst terror attack in British history and claimed the lives of 43 UK citizens.
'This isn't a normal criminal case'
Some, but not all, of the British relatives have never accepted the verdict against Megrahi, including the Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga was on the plane."I think they're just waiting for people like me to pop our clogs and get out of the way," he said."I'm still pretty cynical about the whole thing. I would like to be proved wrong but I can't see it happening."As far as I'm concerned, who made the bomb and who put in on the plane are secondary as to who were the main criminals."They were the group of people who had all the warnings that this was going to happen and warned their own people but didn't warn the public."The big budget television dramas may have pushed the Lockerbie bombing back into the public eye but it's clear that there's a very long way to go before a jury delivers its verdict on Masud.Judge Friedrich warned that if things are not done in a timely manner, there's a risk the trial could "slip" into 2027.As she reminded everyone in the court: "This isn't a normal criminal case."