A US federal judge has delayed the trial of the Libyan man accused of assembling the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people, after prosecutors cited newly uncovered evidence.
Jury selection in the case against Abu Agila Mohammad Masud had been scheduled to begin tomorrow. Masud is alleged to have served as an intelligence operative for the government of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi from 1973 until 2011.
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Judge Dabney Friedrich said yesterday that the postponement was prompted by “newly discovered evidence” as well as material found in other countries.
The court did not announce a new date for the trial. Instead, a hearing has been scheduled for 1 September to review the case’s status.
Pan Am Flight 103 was travelling to New York when it exploded 38 minutes after leaving London. The aircraft’s main fuselage crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland, while wreckage scattered across a wide area.
The bombing remains the deadliest terror attack in Britain. It killed all 259 people aboard, among them 190 Americans, along with 11 people on the ground.
Mr Masud has been held in US custody since 2022, when he was extradited from Libya.
To date, only one person has been convicted in connection with the bombing.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, was convicted in 2001 and spent seven years in a Scottish prison.
He died in Libya in 2012, having continued to insist that he was not responsible.
