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David Cowan, BBC Scotland’s Home Affairs Correspondent, reported that the trial of Abu Agila Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, also known as Masud, may face delays until spring of next year. Initially set to commence in Washington this month, the trial has been postponed due to Masud’s health issues and to allow more time for the defense to prepare. The joint submission to the court suggests a trial date of late April 2026 with the formal approval of a judge.
Masud has refuted the allegations of being responsible for the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988, resulting in the deaths of all 259 passengers and crew aboard and 11 individuals on the ground in Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway. It stands as the most fatal terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.
The accused, described as a dual citizen of Libya and Tunisia in his early 70s, has been undergoing treatment for a non-life-threatening medical condition. The complexity of the international evidence in the case was highlighted in a joint status report presented to the US district court in the District of Columbia. Both the prosecution and defense have emphasized the unique nature of the pre-trial schedule and have requested an earlier deadline for motions related to suppressing Masud’s alleged confession made in Libyan detention in 2012.
Furthermore, Masud is said to have implicated two accomplices, Abdelbasset Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah, in the bombing incident. While Megrahi was convicted of the murders of the 270 victims and subsequently released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government before passing away in Tripoli, Fhimah was acquitted in the trial held at the Scottish court in the Netherlands. Prosecutors only named Masud as a suspect in the case in 2015 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. He was formally charged by the then-US attorney general William Barr five years later, leading to his detainment in the United States in 2022 following his removal by an armed group. The upcoming court hearing in Washington is slated to occur on Thursday
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