Lockerbie bombing trial delayed; defense cites evidence disclosed days before jury selection

Newly discovered evidence in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 has delayed the long-awaited trial, which was set for jury selection on Wednesday.

In court documents reviewed by Just the News, defense attorneys for Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, the former Libyan intelligence official charged with the bombing, requested additional time to review evidence provided to them by the prosecution over the weekend.

“This continuance is necessary to investigate newly-discovered [sic] evidence previously unknown to both parties until August 21, 2026. The government disclosed this evidence to the defense on Saturday, August 22, 2026. Constitutional and ethical obligations require the defense to investigate this development,” the defense attorneys wrote.

District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich granted the motion, scheduling a hearing on the status of the case for Sept. 1.

Nothing in the court documents hint at what the new evidence contains, and Friedrich’s office told Just the News that she would not comment beyond what is in the public docket. Al-Marimi’s public defenders, Brooke Sealy and Laura Koenig, also declined to comment on a pending case.

It is unclear what new evidence could have been discovered in the nearly 40-year-old case, which occurred on Dec. 21, 1988. This marks the first trial in the U.S. relating to the bombing, which killed 270 people, most of whom were Americans.

Kara Weipz, board president of the nonprofit Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told CBS that her organization received no details about the newly discovered evidence leading to a trial delay. Weipz told the outlet it was a shock to learn of the delay and that other victims’ relatives were already preparing to travel for the trial.

"At the same time, for almost 38 years, we've been seeking the truth of what happened," she told the outlet. "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."

Pan Am Flight 103 was flying at 31,000 feet above Lockerbie, Scotland, when a bomb that had been placed in the plane’s forward cargo area exploded, CBS News reported. The bomb exploded just 38 minutes after the flight left London Heathrow Airport as it headed to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. All 259 passengers and crew members were killed, along with 11 Lockerbie locals on the ground who were killed when the crash took out a full city block. The entire crime scene stretched more than 840 square miles, nearly the width of Scotland.

Eleven years after the bombing, in May 2000, two Libyans, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, were tried for the crime in the Netherlands before three Scottish judges. No jury sat for the trial, and al-Megrahi was found guilty while Fhimah was found not guilty. He was released from prison in 2009 due to his terminal prostate cancer and died in 2012.

The original investigation that led to the first trial also uncovered a third suspect, identified only as “Abu Agela Masud,” but investigators could not identify him. FBI investigators continued to probe the incident, searching for the identity of Masud, and in 2020, they charged al-Marimi with two counts of destruction of an aircraft resulting in death. The original complaint against him, reviewed by Just the News, alleges that he admitted to building the bomb that brought down Flight 103 and working with Megrahi and Fhimah at the behest of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed in 2011. Al-Marimi’s defense alleges the confession was coerced, but Judge Friedrich previously allowed it to be admitted as evidence in the trial, the BBC reported.