US JUDGE POSTPONES LOCKERBIE BOMBING TRIAL OVER NEW EVIDENCE

A federal judge has postponed the trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former Libyan intelligence official charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, citing the discovery of new evidence that defence attorneys wish to examine. Jury selection had been scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Washington. US District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not specify the nature of the newly discovered evidence in her order. Al-Marimi's lawyers stated that prosecutors disclosed the material to them on Saturday and that their "constitutional and ethical obligations require the defence to investigate this development".

The bombing killed 270 people on 21 December 1988: all 259 passengers and crew on Flight 103, and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. The flight departed London Heathrow Airport bound for New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. A bomb in the plane's forward cargo area exploded 38 minutes after take-off, whilst the aircraft was 9.45 kilometres above Lockerbie, destroying an entire block in the town. Citizens of 21 countries were killed, including 190 Americans and 43 from the United Kingdom. Among the dead were 35 Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad. Al-Marimi is charged with making the bomb.

Friedrich scheduled a hearing for 1 September in Washington to discuss the case's status. Defence attorney Laura Koenig declined to elaborate on the new evidence. Kara Weipz, board president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said her organisation had received no details about the material that prompted the delay. Weipz's brother Richard Monetti was among the Syracuse students killed. She characterised the postponement as a shock, noting that some victims' relatives had already begun preparing to attend the trial.