Lockerbie bombing trial date set as US judge warns against further delay

A US trial date has been set for a Libyan man accused of making the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie almost 40 years ago.

Judge Dabney Friedrich said the federal prosecution of Abu Agila Masud over the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history would finally get under way on January 19, as she again warned she would not tolerate further delays to proceedings, which have previously been postponed several times.

The most recent hold-up in August, just as jury selection was set to begin, followed the disclosure of new evidence that defence lawyers wanted to examine.

The last-minute delay caused concern among victims’ representatives given the elderly age of many bereaved relatives.

The nature of the fresh material has not been revealed, but the court hearing on Monday heard it involved just one new witness.

Masud, now in his mid-70s, who was in court dressed in a green prison jumpsuit, listened to the proceedings through an interpreter.

He is charged with two counts of destruction of an aircraft resulting in death.

He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors claim he once confessed to his role, although this has been challenged by his lawyers.

Masud, who was extradited from Libya to the US in 2022, has denied the charges.

Signalling she would not put up with further delays in the case, Judge Friedrich told the court in Washington, DC: “The defendant and the public and the victims have waited a long time for this trial.”

All 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded 31,000ft above Lockerbie in Scotland and 38 minutes into its flight from London to New York in 1988.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person convicted in connection with the bombing, after being found guilty of 270 counts of murder by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting at a special court in the Hague in 2001.

He was sent to serve his prison sentence in Scotland but was controversially granted compassionate release in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, returning home to Libya where he died in 2012.

His fellow Libyan co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who was cleared at the time of involvement in the atrocity, was recently reported to have died.

Scottish prosecutors have always maintained that Megrahi acted with others in carrying out the attack.