A US federal judge has postponed the trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, the former Libyan intelligence officer accused of building the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, after new evidence emerged just days before jury selection was set to begin in Washington.
Judge Dabney Friedrich scheduled a status hearing for 1 September and pushed the trial to January 2026, following disclosure of material by prosecutors to the defence on Saturday. Al-Marimi, who has been in US custody since 2022, denies constructing the device that killed all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground in Lockerbie, including 190 Americans and 35 Syracuse University students.
The case marks the first US prosecution over the attack, which the FBI described as one of the deadliest acts of air terrorism before 9/11. Two other Libyan intelligence officers were previously tried by Scottish judges in the Netherlands in 2000.