New evidence prompts trial delay for Libyan man charged in 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

Flight 103 was 31,000 feet (9.45 kilometers) 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.

Kara Weipz, board president of the nonprofit 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 Moammar Gadhafi, who was ousted and killed during a 2011 civil war.

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.

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.

Al-Marimi worked for the Libyan intelligence service from approximately 1973 to 2011, rising to the rank of colonel, according to prosecutors.

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.