Statement by family of Lockerbie accused Masud

[What follows is a translation of a statement issued in Arabic by the family of Abu Ajila Masud on 16 March. I am grateful to Susan McNarey for procuring the translation.]

TRANSLATION/ In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Tripoli – Saturday, 2025/03/16 – 23:20

Statement on behalf of the citizen Abu Ujaila Majid Masoud Khair Al-Marimi.

Hisham Abu Ujaila Al-Marimi speaks as a representative of the father and regarding the latest developments related to his arrest as he enters the third year of detention… and until this moment, confirming the following is important:

(1)

Everyone knows that he was handed over to the American government for free… without anything in return. We have been saying this since day one… There was no reason or justification for that… and it was only done because it was demanded from those who were required to act.

(2)

The source of the accusation against the father is the American government… it is based on physical coercion imposed on different (33) judges who made the conviction decision against their will.

(3)

The American government itself imposed the condition of a trial… and it is the same government that deliberately created a conviction-based equation. It suggested that he “agrees”… then after three years of detention, he was deprived of his constitutional and personal rights in an unimaginable manner.

(4)

It has become clear that the American government was working to include the father in a claim against his country and its citizens… without regard for the father’s free will and personal choice… and without considering his decision. Thus, this government worked to implicate him and falsely attach him to accusations.

(5)

The father insists on his innocence… which is not just a claim but something the American government itself is aware of… The father had no involvement in what he is accused of… and he was arrested in illegal detention centers… He never had anything to do with the Lockerbie plane case… neither was he a part of it, nor was he in his country at the time, nor was he connected to the heinous crime. 

(6)

In a loud voice… and in the presence of (3) out of (5) intensive American prosecutors in the case… and (12 days) before its date… he said he was ready for trial from day one… and that the American government did not confront him with any evidence of what they claim… and until now, it has not fulfilled its promise from the beginning of this month.

(7)

Our expectation today came true, as usual… with the unnatural solidarity and closeness between the prosecution and the defense before the court, which made a fatal mistake… and without setting a new date for the trial… meaning the trial will not take place at all. This has significant implications, including:

(i)

That the father faces a life sentence… without a court ruling… and without any accusation allowing a fair trial.

This solidarity between the defense and the prosecution in the postponement was against the father’s will… and not for any legitimate legal value or consideration of the consequences… The American government bears full responsibility for the father’s personal safety, considering the court’s decision to postpone.

(ii)

We emphasize that the father refused the final postponement… and with the expected results… and the absence of the legitimacy of his detention for even an hour across a third country, we demand the immediate release of the father and compensation for the harm he endured.

(iii)

Among all the constitutional and international violations of the American government, which were approved by the court, we affirm that these aggressive practices and the denial of a fair trial… and the court’s failure to prevent these impossible practices… reaffirm the impossibility of the accusations and the impossibility of conviction.

(8)

Furthermore, all the aggressive and unjust practices by the American government against the father… and this unjust postponement without determining a future trial date… reinforce our confidence that we were in the right position from the perspective of truth, justice, and history. We did not submit to anyone, nor did we wear what did not suit us… What befell us around (1000 days) ago was true… and with the acknowledgment of the American government.

(9)

Thus, with what has already been done in terms of (obstruction) and not merely a postponement of the trial… no argument remains for the wrongdoers or the prosecutors of the trial to continue supporting it.

A trial will certainly not take place… and they must take the correct stance on truth, justice, and history…

We continue to affirm that we have not and will not waver… and this message has reached and is clear to the American government. We extend our deep gratitude to those who have offered us support and solidarity… and we reiterate that there is no time for hesitation and no time for waiting—it will never come. The trial that the American government is pushing for requires action without hope in its timing… and praise be to God alone. Prayer and peace be upon the one after whom there is no prophet.

With sincere respect,

Hisham Abu Jameela Al-Marimi

US judge agrees to delay Lockerbie bombing trial

[What follows is excepted from a report published yesterday on the BBC News website:]

A US judge has agreed to delay the trial of a Libyan man accused of building the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie more than 36 years ago.

The case against Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, known as Masud, was due to begin in Washington on 12 May, but has been postponed at the request of the prosecution and defence.

A new starting date for the trial has not been set but discussions are ongoing.

Masud has denied priming the explosive device which brought down the Boeing 747 on 21 December 1988, killing 259 passengers and crew.

Another 11 people died in the south of Scotland town when wreckage fell on their homes.

Masud, who is in his early 70s, is described as a joint citizen of Libya and Tunisia. He has been receiving treatment for a non-life threatening medical condition.

In submissions to the court, US government prosecutors referred to the complexity of the case and the time required to adequately prepare for pre-trial hearings.

The lawyers also raised the issue of "voluminous discovery, including evidence located in other countries" and the need for the defence to determine how best to defend Masud.

US district court judge Dabney Friedrich agreed to delay the 12 May starting date.

A status conference on the case is due to take place at the court next month.

Scottish and US prosecutors first named Masud as a suspect in 2015 when the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya breathed new life into the Lockerbie investigation.

Five years later, the then US attorney general William Barr announced they were charging Masud with the destruction of an aircraft resulting in death.

He was taken into American custody in 2022 after being removed from his Tripoli home by an armed militia.

A key pre-trial issue is likely to be the admissibility of a confession Masud is alleged to have made in prison in Libya in 2012.

According to the FBI, Masud said he had worked for the Libyan intelligence service and admitted building the device which brought down Pan Am Flight 103.

Lockerbie bombing’s lasting impact on a ‘normal little town’

[What follows is excerpted from a report by Libby Brooks published in today's edition of The Guardian:]

Eleven of the street’s residents died when the wing section of Pan Am 103 crashed into Sherwood Crescent with the force of a meteorite on 21 December 1988, gouging a 30ft crater on this spot. The impact was such that some bodies were never recovered.

This once anonymous street was recreated in meticulous detail for the filming of the Sky Atlantic series Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, which was first screened last month and stars the Oscar winner Colin Firth as Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed when a bomb exploded on the Pan Am flight from London bound for New York.

Although the drama has been widely praised, some relatives of the 270 people who lost their lives in what remains the UK’s deadliest terrorist atrocity have questioned the need for such graphic depictions of the immediate aftermath. A spokesperson for the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 group described it as “tragedy porn” to the Hollywood news site Deadline, while closer to home a Lockerbie resident who lost her sister and brother-in-law wrote in the Annandale Herald: “I don’t need to be reminded about the terrible scene that night.”

But for a generation born after 1988, this series may be their first exposure to the tangle of legal proceedings, conspiracy theories and international controversy that has become synonymous with the name of one small town in the south of Scotland.

With a second dramatisation airing on BBC One and Netflix later this year, a new BBC Scotland documentary, and the trial of the alleged bomb-maker starting in the US in May, Lockerbie is likely to remain in the spotlight this year, willingly or otherwise.

“It’s the most normal little town in the world, with a strong community, and people are just living their lives,” says the Rev Frances Henderson, a minister at Lochmaben and Lockerbie Churches. “You don’t see the trauma until suddenly you do. It’s there, being carried and dealt with, a trauma that is part of their lives and has shaped the last decades.”

Henderson has not watched the Colin Firth series herself, “not because I object to it but because I feel I’d have to psyche myself up to it,” she says.

“I think most people feel it’s been done respectfully but neither have I heard of many watching it because it’s too real. For those who weren’t there, who may be too young to remember, it’s perhaps useful, but not for those who were there.”

The series was based on Swire’s investigations into the bombing. He and many supporters have argued consistently for the innocence of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan intelligence officer who was convicted in 2001 at a specially convened Scottish court in the Netherlands of 270 counts of murder.

Swire believes that Megrahi, who was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government in 2009 after a diagnosis of terminal cancer and died in 2011 in Tripoli, was framed to deflect attention from Iranian and Syrian responsibility. This is rejected as a conspiracy theory by US victims’ relatives, who felt the series misrepresented the trial and portrayed Megrahi as “an innocent man that should be empathised with”.

Swire and other UK relatives continue to demand a public inquiry into the failure to take seriously or make public warnings that an attack on a Pan Am flight was imminent, while in May another Libyan, 72-year-old Abu Agila Masud, will go on trial in Washington accused of building the bomb that brought down the flight. He denies all charges.

Colin Smyth, the Scottish Labour MSP for the region, said: “There has been so much written about the trial and various conspiracy theories, but no one has ever spoken to me about any of that as a constituent.

“People of Lockerbie didn’t choose for their town to be known for this, but they took their responsibility to the victims very seriously from the first night – like the couple who found a young man in their field and didn’t want to leave him so stood vigil until dawn, or the man who scooped up the body of a toddler and drove them into town so they weren’t left in the cold and wet.”

“For decades they have welcomed people with open arms as the families of the victims continue to visit their loved ones’ last resting place. Those relationships have sustained – you hear of relatives staying at family homes in Lockerbie even now.”

Those relationships are woven through the generations, thanks to the enduring scholarship programme between Lockerbie Academy and Syracuse University, New York, which lost 35 students in the disaster.

"All the Lockerbie evidence must be revealed"

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today's edition of The Times:]

The former justice secretary [Kenny MacAskill] said the public deserved answers from British and US intelligence services about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

The former SNP justice secretary has called for documents about the Lockerbie bombing held by the US and British intelligence services to be released.

Kenny MacAskill, who held the position from 2007 to 2014, said that he thought the public were entitled to know all the facts about the investigation.

“I think what we have to do is get the full documentation and information provided by the UK and USA. They have intelligence documents that they have refused to put out to the general public,” he told ITV Border.

“The Scottish government — certainly the Scottish government I served in — put everything that we were entitled to out there, but there are factors that the UK and USA know about and have not disclosed.” (...)

MacAskill, who became the Alba party’s acting leader after the death of Alex Salmond, released al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009 after his diagnosis with terminal cancer. Al-Megrahi died in 2012.

Prosecutors have maintained that al-Megrahi did not act alone.

Abu Agila Masud, a Tunisian-born Libyan citizen who is alleged to have helped make the bomb, is due to go on trial in the US in May this year.

The US announced three charges against Masud, which he denies, in 2020 and he has been in custody for two years.

Last year, the former justice secretary said he had “always believed” that Masud was the bomber.

The UK government has previously prevented the publication of secret documents which are believed to implicate Palestinian militants. (...)

MacAskill said: “We do know, for example, that Moussa Koussa, who was the foreign minister under Colonel Gaddafi, defected to Britain, where he was debriefed and then handed over to America.

“He is given the full works, if you could put it that way, and yet we have never been told what it was he said.

“I think what the public are entitled to is to have the full disclosure by the US and British intelligence but I do believe the investigation carried out was right.” (...)

[Christine] Grahame [MSP] brought [a members’ business] debate before Holyrood in response to a book released by Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the disaster, (...) subsequently turned into a drama starring Colin Firth.

In her speech, Grahame laid out the history of the case which put al-Megrahi — the only man convicted of the atrocity — behind bars, including some questions which remain, and called for a public inquiry into its handling.

Well-qualified commentators have pulled Megrahi's conviction apart

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Marcello Mega in The Sunday Times today. The published version may vary slightly from the text below:]

With a Libyan agent convicted in January 2001 of the Lockerbie bombing and another soon to be tried in the US, you might wonder why many relatives of the dead remain so fixated on seeking truth.

Dr Jim Swire has led the campaign, unconvinced by the evidence he heard at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands against two Libyans that saw one of them convicted of mass murder, and increasingly aware over the many years since of the hidden evidence that might have cleared both.

In the year ahead, two television dramas and the trial in Washington of Abu Agila Masud, accused of making the bomb that took 270 lives on 21 December 1988, will remind us that the full story is still unknown.

Sky’s Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, with Colin Firth playing Swire, will be first to reach the public, from 2 January.

The series is based on Swire’s book Lockerbie: A Father's Search for Justice, which points to many holes in the story accepted by the trial and highlights contradictory evidence that has emerged since.

Early on in the project, Firth requested a briefing because he sensed it could have a similar impact on the public as Mr Bates and the Post Office, which transformed understanding of the Post Office scandal.

Firth wanted to be certain any similar impact on understanding of Lockerbie would be justified. The briefing was arranged with experts who understood the case and Firth was happy to proceed.

Now 88 and having devoted 36 years to the quest for truth after his daughter Flora was murdered on the flight, Swire is weary and has signalled it might be time to put down his sword.

Having been promised and denied a full public inquiry by the Tory Government of the day and by the Labour Government that followed, he believes all documents held on the case should now be made public.

He holds out little hope, but believes the drama might animate the public, making the demand for truth harder to resist.

The 82-page judgment of Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield (now deceased) and Maclean is available online, double-spaced and not a difficult read.

Well-qualified commentators such as Gareth Peirce, who overturned the convictions of the Guildford Four, and Professor Robert Black, who devised the scheme for the Lockerbie trial in a neutral country, have pulled it apart.

The prosecution’s case started with an unaccompanied suitcase carrying a bomb being placed on Air Malta Flight KM180 from Luqa Airport to Frankfurt on 21 December 1988.

It was supposedly tagged to go on to Pan Am 103A to Heathrow and then to New York-bound Pan Am 103.

Swire, in common with many others, believes that a security breach not disclosed during the trial allowed the bomb to start its path at Heathrow where the plane was loaded from empty.

The judges, however, decided that an unaccompanied suitcase did travel on the Air Malta flight while recognising that not a shred of evidence supported it.

It might have been even harder to make that leap of faith had baggage handlers from Luqa been called as witnesses.

In their statements, they explained that not only did an unaccompanied bag not travel on the flight, it could not have happened because of the simple system they used.

They never knew how many passengers were booked on a flight, but physically counted the bags going on, then called the check-in desk to see if their counts matched. If not, the bags came off and the count restarted.

One or two of these witnesses could potentially have killed the Crown’s case at its inception, but they were never called.

In a highly complex case involving thousands of witness statements and tens of thousands of productions, Megrahi’s conviction came down to two essential matters: the testimony of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci and the identification of a fragment of circuit board said to have detonated the bomb as coming from a batch sold only to Libya.

The judges did not know until after the trial that Gauci’s evidence was tainted by the promise of reward money from the US.

Gauci, now dead, received $2m, and his brother Paul, who didn’t even testify, a further $1m.

The Scottish justice system has largely ignored the relevance of these rewards. The late Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, a Scottish clan chief who became one of England’s most senior judges, said if he had ever become aware of witnesses receiving rewards for evidence, he would have ordered the jury to discount it entirely.

Instead, the trial judges attached inexplicable weight to Gauci’s testimony. He never stated unequivocally that Megrahi bought the clothes from his shop that were placed in the case alongside the bomb.

Even in court, asked to make a simple dock identification, he qualified it by saying Megrahi resembled the man, as he had in all his statements, although his first description was of a man many years younger and several inches taller.

The judgment acknowledged his lack of certainty several times, but at the final mention the judges turned it into a virtue, suggesting it underlined his honesty. This measure of reliability cannot be found elsewhere in Scottish criminal law.

In addition, the judges stated without obvious reason that Gauci was “100% reliable”, on the list of clothing bought from his shop and the prices paid.

Yet in 1999, Gauci had produced an entirely different list from the first one while making a fresh statement in advance of the trial.

Like other evidence that did not suit the prosecution case it was not passed to the defence.

The judges also had to decide whether the clothing had been bought on 23 November, when Megrahi was not on the island, or 7 December, when he was.

They accepted that meteorological and other evidence suggested 23 November was more likely, but stated that they preferred 7 December, offering nothing of substance to support the decision.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said later that no reasonable court could have concluded the clothing was purchased on 7 December, a particularly damning view when no jury was involved.

Remarkably, the evidence around the circuit board is still unfolding. Of all the thousands of productions in the case, only one evidence bag, the one containing the fragment, had its label overwritten, fuelling a belief it had been planted.

Forensic tests after the trial showed no trace of explosives’ residue, so the fragment was unlikely to have been at the heart of a bomb. Later, metallurgical tests showed it actually came from a type of board put into production in 1989, adding to the suspicion of a plant.  

All three key forensic ‘experts’ in the case who testified on the fragment, two British and one American, have been completely discredited for malpractice in other murder cases.

Jim Swire has been my friend for more than 30 years. We once undertook an investigation to Sweden together to try to challenge Abu Talb, a man we believed was involved in the bombing.

His age is now against him taking similar bold steps to establish the truth, but the signature obstinance of this admirable man has never seemed perverse to me.

[RB: The present post differs somewhat in format from the norm in this blog. This is because the hardware and software on which I am having to rely in Ajman is not what I am accustomed to.]

The official version ... is absolute nonsense

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in The Sunday Times today:]

The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie remains the deadliest terrorist attack to have taken place in Britain. (...)

In all 270 people were murdered, among them Flora, the 23-year-old daughter of Dr Jim and Jane Swire. For Jim it was the start of a 35-year quest to find out who had killed her and why — a story that is being told in a five-part Sky drama starring Colin Firth as Swire.

A three-year investigation by the FBI and Scottish police led to the arrest of two Libyan men, one of whom, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted of the attack in 2001. But after his trial it was revealed that the US government had paid millions to two central witnesses and some forensic evidence was discredited. Megrahi maintained his innocence until his death in 2012.

“An awful lot has been written about the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie disaster,” says Gareth Neame, Lockerbie’s executive producer. “But sometimes when you dramatise a story you bring a new perspective. We saw that, obviously, with the Post Office drama [Mr Bates vs the Post Office] — a story that had been bubbling under the headlines for years, a miscarriage of justice. Suddenly it captured people’s attention.”

Initially Swire accepted the American claim of Libyan responsibility for the bombing, but during the trial he began to have doubts. When Megrahi’s guilty verdict was read out, the doctor collapsed in disbelief, and went on to campaign for the Libyan’s retrial and release. He believes Megrahi was framed and that the bomb was planted by Iranians at Heathrow. (The US and UK governments maintain that the bomb originated in Malta, and was flown to Heathrow as part of a Libyan plot.)

Swire has been called a conspiracy theorist by some, but the drama supports his misgivings. Based on his book, Lockerbie: A Father’s Search for Justice, it has already been criticised by the American-based campaign group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, who contend that the series will promote a “false narrative”. But its makers hope his story might become the Mr Bates vs the Post Office of 2025, generating enough public anger to prompt a closer examination of the many unanswered questions surrounding the attack.

Firth met Jim and Jane Swire a few weeks before the drama began shooting. “Jim Swire had not previously been someone with an innate distrust in institutions,” he tells me when I meet him on the courtroom set in Scotland where Megrahi’s trial is being restaged. “I’m not even sure he has that now. He simply wants to know what happened and why. He’s a rational man responding to facts as he sees them. I believe he would still be happy to be proved wrong if it meant knowing the truth.”

Firth tells me that Swire is plainly no crank. “This isn’t someone who has the kind of zealotry that makes them cling to a position no matter what. He has changed his position according to new information. He’s very, very alive to new facts, to new evidence. I think it takes quite a lot of courage to keep that up for nearly four decades, particularly when feelings are so strong. And I think a man like that is worth listening to.”

Jim Swire is 88. When we speak and I ask him how he is this morning he replies: “I’m ancient.” He peppers his conversation with references to his age and how little time he must have left. Yet when it comes to the details of the Lockerbie disaster, its ramifications and implications, he is tack-sharp.

He was, he says, “elated” on hearing that there was to be a dramatisation of his story. “Because it’s always seemed to me, throughout the past 36 years, that there is a yawning gap between the little bits that we could do as individual relatives of those who were slaughtered, and where the establishments of our country and America are on this issue. That gap is so horrendous that I know full well we have failed to bridge it. And now we need to bring it to the attention of other people who can make up their own minds about what happened.”

So what does he think happened? “The thing becomes simpler and simpler the more you know about it,” he says. “In July 1988 Iran had an Airbus with 290 innocent people on board shot down by a US missile cruiser in the Gulf. After that awful incident, instead of immediately saying, ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,’ America decided to award a medal to the captain of the ship and ribbons to the crew, and for a long time failed to pay any compensation to the poor families.”

Swire’s theory is that the Lockerbie bombing, which targeted a flight that was supposed to be full of Americans, was meant to be revenge (a warning had been issued to US diplomats not to book tickets home for Christmas on PanAm Flight 103, allowing Flora Swire, for one, to grab a late seat). (...)

Swire is a man steeped in British institutions. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers who ran the British garrison in Bermuda on the outbreak of the First World War. “He was a man of principle of whom I was deeply in awe,” Swire says. He was sent from the family home on Skye to board at Eton from the age of seven. He learnt esprit de corps during national service as a second lieutenant in Cyprus and Port Said, then read geology at Cambridge before retraining as a doctor and becoming a family GP.

But trying to get straight answers as to why his daughter died changed him. In 1991, in an early bid to get the Libyan suspects Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah handed over to face charges, he took matters into his own hands and travelled to Libya to meet Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in person.

This, Swire concedes, was reckless in the extreme. “Looking back, I can only blush at my own naivety. But by that stage I had had enough time to discover that what I was being told by the authorities in my own country was not true, essentially, and I was determined.”

His determination led him to make his own conclusions, based on scrupulous examination of the evidence, including fragments of a circuit board that linked the Libyans to the bombing, which Swire believes were planted by the FBI.

“What I discovered was horrendous, and I’ve been able to discover enough about the truth to know that the official version that you and I are being solemnly told, to this day, particularly by the Americans, but also by the UK authorities, is absolute nonsense.” Another alleged Libyan terrorist, Abu Agila Masud, was arrested in 2022 and is due to face trial in the US over the Lockerbie bombing next May.

Swire is very aware that not everyone agrees with his version of events. The drama shows how the American families in particular think he has been gulled by the Libyans, or vanished into a Bermuda Triangle of his own theorising. “In a post-truth situation people like me are branded by the authorities as conspiracy theorists, or whatever phrase you like to use — and the establishment is always assumed to be the upright, honest broker of truth. The American relatives, many of them, think I’m absolutely bananas.”

When I spoke to Firth, who had been given Swire’s shock of grey hair and wore his “The truth must be known” badge, he was at pains to point out that Lockerbie: A Search for Truth is not just a father’s story. It begins with the brutal actuality of what Swire calls “the slaughter”, and also follows Jane (a superb Catherine McCormack) and the rest of their family. “It’s very much about the cost to them as a couple and as a family. This isn’t just about the search for judicial truth — it’s not just a legal drama,” Firth says.

Does Firth think we will ever learn the truth about Lockerbie? “I don’t know,” he says. “But I am in awe of this man’s determination to pursue it.”

Lockerbie: A Search for Truth is on Sky from Jan 2

Libyan Lockerbie suspect’s family urges international intervention

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of Libya Review. It reads as follows:]

On Saturday, the family of Abu Ajila Masoud Al-Marimi, the Libyan intelligence officer accused of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, called on international human rights organizations to intervene urgently, claiming he is being tortured and denied medical care while in US custody. They report that his health has deteriorated significantly and warn of the potential danger to his life.

Al-Marimi was extradited to the United States from Libya in December 2022, a move his family insists was illegal. They say they have been denied any contact or visitation since his transfer and are calling for legal and humanitarian guarantees to ensure his safety. The family is also demanding his immediate return to Libya, where they believe he would receive better care and a fairer legal process. [RB: Masud was not "extradited" to the USA: he was abducted by a Libyan warlord and sold to the US authorities: 

https://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2022/12/even-facade-of-legality-was-not.html]

Al-Marimi’s son revealed that evidence for the upcoming trial, set for May 12, 2025, in Washington DC, has already been submitted. However, he criticized the court for allowing families of Lockerbie victims to attend hearings via video link while denying the same access to Al-Marimi’s family. Al-Marimi, now 71, has consistently denied the allegations against him, declaring in court that he had no involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

This is not the first time the family has raised alarm over his treatment. In June, they reported that he had been hospitalized due to multiple chronic illnesses. His nephew, Abdel Moneim Al-Marimi, expressed concerns about his uncle appearing in court without proper legal representation, as promised financial support for his defense has not materialized. Despite securing a lawyer at their own expense, the family claims they have received little assistance or updates from Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU).

The 1988 Lockerbie bombing remains one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history, killing 270 people. Al-Marimi is accused of being involved in constructing the bomb used in the attack, based on claims that he made a confession to Libyan authorities.

His extradition has been widely criticized within Libya, with opponents arguing that it violated the country’s constitution and sovereignty. Protests erupted across Libya following his handover, with many accusing the GNU of yielding to foreign pressure.

The family’s renewed plea draws attention to Al-Marimi’s worsening health and alleged mistreatment, underscoring broader concerns about human rights violations and the legality of his transfer. They are calling on international organizations to investigate his case and intervene to ensure his basic rights are protected.

The case has further strained Libya’s fragile political climate, while in the US, it has reignited interest in securing accountability for the Lockerbie bombing. Al-Marimi’s family continues to assert his innocence, insisting that any alleged confession was coerced under duress.

Scots give their views on remote access to Masud trial

[What follows is excerpted from a report by David Cowan published today on the BBC News website:]

An international search by the FBI has identified more than 400 people from 10 countries who lost relatives in the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 or suffered emotional injury in its aftermath.

The US law enforcement agency tried to track down people directly affected by the atrocity in advance of a Libyan suspect's trial next year.

A federal court in Washington DC is deciding how to allow remote access to the case against alleged bombmaker Abu Agila Masud.

The 417 people who responded to the FBI survey included more than 100 people from Scotland, 32 of them from Lockerbie itself.

A total of 244 respondents came from the US and 164 from the UK.

Others came from the Netherlands, Spain, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Canada, Mozambique, Australia and Jamaica. (...)

In 2001, after a nine-month trial, a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands ruled that the bombing was the work of Libya's intelligence service.

Abdelbasset al-Megrahi was convicted of playing a key role in the plot and jailed for life, only to be freed on compassionate grounds in 2009 after falling terminally ill with cancer. He died in Libya three years later.

Abu Agila Masud was taken into US custody in 2022 and is due to stand trial in Washington DC next May, accused of making the bomb which destroyed the plane.

In advance of the trial, a group representing American relatives of the victims asked for remote access to the proceedings, saying that many of them were too old and infirm to travel to Washington DC for the case.

US lawmakers subsequently passed legislation to allow the relatives to get remote access "regardless of their location". [RB: The US legislation sadly makes no provision for Masud's family to enjoy remote acess to the trial. This is an omission that should be speedily rectified.]

To help the trial judge decide how that should be done, the FBI set out to identify and question two groups of people affected by the bombing.

The first included those who were “present at or near the scene in Lockerbie when the bombing occurred or immediately thereafter” and who suffered “direct or proximate harm (e.g. physical or emotional injury) as a result."

Many of the Scots who responded to the survey identified themselves as members of that group, including military personnel and rescue workers who took part in the operation to recover the bodies of the victims.

The second group involved “the spouse, legal guardian, parent, child, brother, sister, next of kin or other relative of someone who was killed on Pan Am 103 or killed or harmed on the ground in Scotland or someone who possesses a relationship of a similar significance to someone who was killed or harmed in the attack".

Most of the respondents told the FBI they would like video access via a weblink or app, allowing them to follow the trial from home. A slightly smaller number would also be content with audio-only access.

Masud's defence has suggested that people could watch the case at courthouses and embassies, but the US government argued that option was "logistically unreasonable, unfeasible, impractical and unworkable."

Instead, it is arguing that a "Zoom for Government" platform should be used, with access strictly controlled.

Participants would be told that recording or rebroadcasting the trial would be illegal. The software would include technology to identify anyone breaking the rules.

In a submission to the court, lawyers from the US Attorney's Office said: "These families have suffered for more than three decades.

"This attack was the largest terror attack on the US before September 11, 2001... it remains the single most deadly terror attack in UK history.

"The law passed by Congress applies only to this case.

"Given the death and destruction left by this bombing, and the palpable trauma and pain of the multiple victims spread globally throughout the world, one can only hope that another law like this one will never be needed again."

[The Times of 29 October picks up this story. Its report includes the following:]

Inspired by ITV’s series Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the actor Colin Firth is set to play a bereaved father in a new TV drama called Lockerbie. This has caused anger among victims’ families as the storyline puts forward a narrative that blames Iran for the attack.

Firth plays the part of John [sic] Swire, the father of Lockerbie victim Flora Swire.

Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, whose father Frank Ciulla died in the disaster, told the Mail on Sunday that complaints had been made already.

“We have raised our concerns with the producers,” she said. “We feel they are amplifying and highlighting a false narrative about the bombing, a narrative that the great majority of us who lost loved ones do not align with and have fought very hard against.”

Dedicated team of Scottish prosecutors and police support US in prosecution of Masud

[What follows is excerpted from a report headlined Lockerbie bombing widow urges victims to request virtual access to trial published today on the website of Shropshire Star:]

The widow of a passenger killed in the Lockerbie bombing has urged others affected to request virtual access to the forthcoming trial of a Libyan suspect.

The FBI is carrying out an international search for those affected by the atrocity, which killed all 259 passengers and crew onboard Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground when it exploded above the Scottish town in 1988.

The US Congress has passed legislation to make remote access to court proceedings available to victims in the trial of Abu Agila Masud, who is alleged to have helped make the bomb.

He is to go on trial in the US in May 2025 facing three charges, which he denies.

Victims say they have been told by the US Department of Justice that those affected have until October 9 to complete an online form requesting access to the trial.

The nose cone of the plane crashed into a field adjacent to the Tundergarth Kirk three miles east of Lockerbie and more than 100 bodies were found in the area.

Victoria Cummock is the widow of John Cummock, from Florida, who was one of the passengers found inside the nose cone.

Mrs Cumnock, a trustee of Tundergarth Kirks Trust and chief executive of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation, said: “I urge crime victims to use the FBI form to request virtual trial access via Zoom on our personal devices, which is the more humane, practical, and cost-efficient option.

“This allows ageing victims, like me, to remain in their supportive home environments and younger victims to continue to meet their work and family obligations, without creating unnecessary, daily travel hardships during a trial that could last at least a year.

“Many thousands of people qualify as living crime victims, like I do, and are entitled by US law to a range of support services during the trial, including mental health counselling, court trial access, and travel expense reimbursement.

“I appeal to everyone who qualifies to register to receive these benefits, regardless of whether they intend to access the court proceedings.

“This will probably be our last chance to be counted in demanding accountability and justice.” (...)

US law defines a victim in two ways, the first being anyone present at or near the scene in Lockerbie when the bombing occurred or immediately afterwards who suffered “direct or proximate harm (eg physical or emotional injury)”.

The other group comprises the spouse, legal guardian, parent, child, brother, sister, next of kin, or other relative of someone who was killed aboard the plane or killed or harmed on the ground, or someone who possesses a relationship of similar significance to them.

The FBI said it is collecting the information in an effort to inform the court about the widespread geographic locations of the victims, and to demonstrate how this may affect how they can access the trial proceedings in person.

A Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service spokesperson said: “Scottish and US authorities have worked together since 1988 to bring those responsible for this atrocity to justice.

“That work continues as a dedicated team of Scottish prosecutors and officers from Police Scotland support the US Department of Justice and the FBI in the prosecution of Masud.

“While people of interest are still alive and there is evidence that can continue to be gathered, this investigation will not stop.”

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is so far the only man convicted in relation to the bombing. (...) 

The FBI form can be accessed at https://forms.fbi.gov/panam103victims/view 

FBI search for 'all Lockerbie victims' ahead of suspect's US trial

[This is the headline over a report by David Cowan that was published late yesterday on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]

The FBI has launched an international search for victims of the Lockerbie bombing, including people who suffered “emotional injury”, ahead of a Libyan suspect's trial in the US. (...)

Abu Agila Masud has denied making the device that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish Borders town on 21 December 1988.

A judge in the US federal court where the trial is taking place is considering whether to allow remote access for people directly affected by the case.

The FBI is now trying to find everyone who meets a legal definition of victims of the bombing and wants to watch the trial online. (...)

Abu Agila Masud is due to stand trial before a jury in Washington next May.

The search for people directly affected by the bombing is being undertaken by the FBI's counter terrorism division and the US Department of Justice.

The FBI says the Washington court wants a finalised list of individuals “who meet the statutory definition of victim and wish to have access to the court proceedings".

The court also wants to know their total number and geographic location before it decides how to proceed.

Legislation passed by the US Congress to pave the way for remote access to the trial defines a victim of Lockerbie in two ways.

It includes someone who was “present at or near the scene in Lockerbie when the bombing occurred or immediately thereafter” and who suffered “direct or proximate harm (e.g. physical or emotional injury) as a result".

The second group involves “the spouse, legal guardian, parent, child, brother, sister, next of kin or other relative of someone who was killed on Pan Am 103 or killed or harmed on the ground in Scotland or someone who possesses a relationship of a similar significance to someone who was killed or harmed in the attack".

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died on the plane, welcomed the decision to define people who witnessed what happened in Lockerbie as victims of the bombing, if they suffered harm.

He said: "Those affected by any disaster should never be restricted from access to the consequences of that disaster.

"So I think it's a good move that I entirely endorse."

[RB: No steps appear to have been taken to enable the family of the accused man to have remote access to the trial proceedings. This is a situation that should be speedily rectified.]

Britain rejected secret deal to prosecute Lockerbie bomber in Ireland

[This is the headline over a report published in today's edition of The Sunday Times. It reads in part:]

Officials feared Irish courts were ‘soft on terrorism’ and more likely to acquit Libyan agent Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, previously classified papers reveal

Britain rejected a secret deal to put the Lockerbie bomber on trial in Dublin amid suggestions that Ireland was “soft on terrorism” and more likely to acquit him, it has emerged.

Previously classified diplomatic documents disclose that Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, expressed a willingness to hand over Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to the Irish authorities.

The US and British governments maintained that al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was responsible for the bombing in December 1988 which led to the deaths of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland.

Gaddafi refused to hand him and fellow suspect Lamin Khalifa Fhimah to the authorities in Washington or Edinburgh, leading to years of sanctions and negotiations.

Albert Reynolds, the Irish prime minister, met John Major, his British counterpart, in an attempt to broker a deal to end the stalemate.

However, Downing Street ruled the proposal was too risky after a senior diplomat claimed Irish courts were prone to making “inexplicable” decisions and raised fears that any hearing would be targeted by terrorists.

Gaddafi, who ruled Libya from 1969 when he seized power until he was overthrown and murdered in 2011, was outspoken in his support for the IRA. (...)

Previously unpublished documents from 1994, seen by The Sunday Times, have been opened and placed at the National Archives at Kew.

One, written by Sir Roderic Lyne, Major’s private secretary, confirms for the first time that a clandestine Anglo-Irish summit took place.

“During the tete-a-tete conversation between the prime minister and the taoiseach on May 26, the latter surfaced a Libyan proposal to hold the Lockerbie trial in Ireland,” he wrote.

A handwritten addendum states: “Ireland would be preferable to Canada. But given the Provisional IRA connection a trial there would be piquant to say the least!”

The following month John Dew, deputy head of mission at the UK embassy in Dublin, said the proposal posed unacceptable risks and raised particular concerns about the possibility of al-Megrahi being cleared by a sympathetic Irish court.

“This should not be taken lightly,” he wrote. “Irrespective of the independence of the Irish judiciary — and we all know of some strange rulings in the past — an acquittal would have major implications for Anglo-Irish relations.

“Our public opinion would inevitably interpret it as confirmation that Ireland was soft on terrorism.

“Her Majesty’s government would face serious questioning about why it had allowed the trial to take place in Ireland in view of inexplicable and unpredictable past rulings.” (...)

A separate memo written in the same month by UK Foreign Office civil servants said Reynolds’s suggestion should be taken seriously.

“A trial in Ireland would have some distinct attractions; it is a compatible legal system, it is nearby and it is not a realm or even in the Commonwealth,” it said.

“A number of Irish citizens were on board flight Pan Am 103. It seems that trial in Ireland might be acceptable, both to the Irish government and Libya.

“However, in view of the Provisional IRA connection it would be a more controversial venue than, for example, Australia.”

The British government ultimately rejected the Irish offer, along with an invitation from Nelson Mandela months later for a trial to take place in South Africa.

Eventually, the Libyan suspects went on trial in May 2000 in a Scottish court set up in a former US air base in the Netherlands.

After eight months Lord Cullen, the presiding judge, pronounced a guilty verdict on al-Megrahi. [RB: The presiding judge was actually Lord Sutherland. Lord Cullen presided over the 2001 appeal at Camp Zeist.]

He was sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish prison but released on compassionate grounds while terminally ill in 2009.

He maintained his innocence until his death in 2012 and his family are still fighting to have his conviction overturned.

Fhimah was found not guilty and returned to Libya.

More than three decades on, another man who is suspected of building the bomb that downed Pan Am flight 103 is being prosecuted in the US.

A court in Washington DC fixed a date of May 12, 2025, for the trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, a Libyan citizen who maintains he is not guilty.

In 2018 relatives of Lockerbie victims told The Times that they had been repeatedly bugged by the security services after official documents suggested that they needed “careful watching”.

The Rev John Mosey, a church minister who lost his teenage daughter Helga in the atrocity, said that after speaking publicly his phone calls were often disrupted and documents relating to the bombing had gone missing from his computer.

Jim Swire, an English GP who lost his daughter Flora and became the public face of the campaign to secure an independent inquiry into the atrocity, reported similar intrusions and deliberately included false information in private correspondence, only for it to appear in the press days later.

The claims were corroborated by Hans Köchler, an Austrian academic appointed by the United Nations to be an independent observer at the Netherlands trial, who alleged that data had been taken from his computers.

Jim Swire is a force of nature

[What follows is excerpted from a report published yesterday evening on the website of The Sun:]

Retired GP Jim Swire is a force of nature – a man with balls of steel.

His search for justice after his daughter was murdered in the Lockerbie bombing has been so intense that at times he has put his own life in danger.

The 87-year-old campaigner faced down the late “mad dog” Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s guards armed with AK-47s, sneaked a fake bomb on a plane to expose security flaws and fears he could be a target for Iranian assassins.

But 35 years after 270 people were murdered in the attack over Scotland, on the Pan Am passenger jet flying from London to New York, thoughts of his 23-year-old daughter Flora break his indomitable spirit.

When Jim tries to remember the last words he said to medical student Flora before she left to catch the plane, tears flood his eyes and we pause the interview.

We are speaking in the conservatory of his Cotswolds home because he hopes an upcoming TV drama about the terror bombing will create the same public outcry seen when ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, starring Toby Jones highlighted the organisation’s IT scandal.

Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth will play Jim in the Sky series, Lockerbie, which is being filmed now. (...)

Apart from his grief — and bravery — there is also anger at the bungling officials who failed to stop the fateful bomb getting on to the Boeing 747 on December 21, 1988, at Heathrow Airport before it exploded shortly after 7pm. (...)

He tells The Sun: “I am satisfied Colin will do his utmost to portray someone who has been searching diligently for the truth in the name of the murder of his daughter and all those other people.” getting on to the Boeing 747 on December 21, 1988, at Heathrow Airport before it exploded shortly after 7pm. (...)

Jim, a BBC soundman turned GP, believes documents are still being withheld from relatives which could reveal either a cock-up in the investigation or a cover-up.

The worst terror atrocity ever to be visited upon the UK is still shrouded in mystery and controversy.

Only one person has been convicted of carrying out the attack — Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. His country-man Abu Agila Mohammad Masud is awaiting trial.

A call had been made to the US embassy in Finnish capital Helsinki warning that a bomb would be loaded on a Pan Am flight in Frankfurt, Germany, bound for Heathrow then New York.

That information was not passed on to regular travellers.

The threat should have been taken seriously because in October that year terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command were found with bombs in Neuss, Germany, designed to trigger once a plane reached a certain height. (...)

Understandably, Jim cannot hide his rage over this fatal delay. He says of the bomb: “It was in the baggage compartment, almost beneath the feet of my daughter and all of those innocent passengers. It exploded almost 48 hours from the warning having been passed on by the Department of Transport. Have we had an apology? No, we have not.

“Whatever you believe about Libya or all the rest of it, that’s where the explosion occurred, that was the warning they had and that was the way they handled it.

“If that doesn’t make a relative of anyone murdered in that atrocity angry, it bloody well should.” (...)

The late Paul Channon, Transport Secretary at the time, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, denied there had been a security failure but lost his job.

In the wake of Lockerbie, airlines claimed far more stringent inspections of luggage were put in place.

Keen to put that promise to the test, Jim, who had explosives training during a stint of military service, built a replica of the Lockerbie bomb with the Semtex explosive replaced by marzipan.

He managed to get it past Heathrow’s security even though a member of security found the Toshiba tape recorder containing the fake device.

Jim recalls: “The lady who opened up the suitcase said, ‘Sir, have you taken out the batteries?’ and I said, ‘Yes’, and she put it back.

“That poor lady had not been trained in what might and might not be dangerous.”

The Lockerbie crime scene was the largest ever in UK history. (...)

Initially, the finger of suspicion pointed toward Iran, because it had close links to the PFLP-GC and its leaders had sworn revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet in July 1988 by a US warship.

Then the FBI investigation, carried out in unison with Dumfries and Galloway Police, pivoted instead toward Libya.

Detectives concluded that Libyan Arab Airlines security chief Al-Megrahi and his colleague Lamin Khalifah Fhimah were responsible for the atrocity. (...)

[F]ollowing pressure from sanctions, the two Libyan suspects were tried in Holland in 2000. As the trial went on Jim started to doubt they had been responsible for Flora’s murder. When Al-Megrahi was found guilty — although Fhimah was cleared and let go — he collapsed from shock.

Jim says: “My son sitting next to me in the courtroom thought that I had died.”

He now believes the late PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril was the true mastermind of the horror that claimed his daughter’s life.

Jibril died of heart failure in July 2021 in Syrian capital Damascus, and Jim says: “I can’t conceal from you I am delighted he is dead.”

He suspects that Jibril’s ultimate paymasters were Iran’s security services.

Pointing the finger at Tehran’s murderous ayatollahs shows how fearless Jim is. He says: “It has often occurred to me that I might get bombed. The more the truth comes out the more possible it is that I might get killed by Iran for wanting revenge.

“It seems to me the direct line came from Iran.”

But Scottish judges have twice upheld the murder convictions of Al-Megrahi, who died from cancer in 2012.

Next year US prosecutors will bring Masud to trial, accusing him of making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.

Whatever any court decides, nothing will take away the pain from Jim and his wife Jane.

As Jim puts it: “When someone close to you in your family gets murdered, you get handed a life sentence.

“Jane and I will go to our graves still mourning the loss of Flora.”

MacAskill reiterates belief Megrahi involved at "low level"

[What follows is excerpted from a long article about former Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill published on the website of Holyrood magazine on 15 January:]

MacAskill was perceived by some as a solid pair of hands in justice, to others as far too close to its institutions, but he came to global prominence in 2009 when he made the decision to release the so-called ‘Lockerbie bomber’, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, from prison on compassionate grounds so he could return to Libya to die having been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

MacAskill took sole responsibility for the controversial decision and delivered it to a specially recalled parliament with all the gravity of a Presbyterian minister giving a sermon. He said Megrahi faced a sentence imposed by a “higher power”, adding: “It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die.”

It felt at the time that the decision to free Megrahi was a truly momentous one and that the eyes of the world were on Scotland. Opprobrium was heaped on the justice secretary from the relatives of the US victims of the bombing and political figures, including President Obama and the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spoke out against it. (...)

Almost 35 years to the day that Pan Am Flight 103 came down over Lockerbie, I ask MacAskill how heavy that decision had weighed on him.

“It didn’t, I just did what was my job to do,” he says, dismissively, in his distinctive sing-song tone. “I remember going to speak to special advisers when we found out Megrahi was ill and it was all agreed this would be my decision alone, you could lose a cabinet secretary, but you cannot lose the government. So that put a firewall around it in terms of the correct procedures. You also have to remember, it was actually a very short period of time because although he was diagnosed earlier, there was a frenetic summer that basically went, June, July, and that was it, it was over. (...)

“At the end of the day, I stand by the decision I made. I think history has proven that, and Abu Agila Masud is currently in a US prison having been charged with making the bomb. The only thing that continues to irritate me is those that view Megrahi as some, you know, Arab saint – he was involved. He was low level, he was the highest-ranking Libyan that the Libyans were prepared to hand over, and he was the lowest down the rung that the West was prepared to accept. But he was released following all the rules and guidance and on a point of principle. He lived longer than expected, which caused some difficulties, but equally, that was because he was getting treatment that we didn’t offer on the NHS and, more importantly, as everybody knows, if you’ve got a reason to live, then you do live longer, as opposed to being sad in a lonely prison cell on your own and you turn your face to the wall. I’ve seen that with family in hospital, they just decide life isn’t for them, and so that’s what happened. I have no doubts that the right decision was made, none.”

[RB: Kenny MacAskill's contention that Megrahi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing, albeit at a low level, has been advanced by him before. A detailed rebuttal can be found here: The unravelling of Kenny MacAskill ... and the case against Megrahi.]

Masud's family says lawyer believes he can be acquitted

[What follows is excerpted from a report published yesterday on the website of The Libya Observer:]

The family of Abu Ajila Masud al-Marimi, the Libyan citizen suspected in the Lockerbie case, said that the defense team tackling the case file reviewed its details and expressed satisfaction at the possibility of Masud's being found not guilty of the charges against him.

The family said in a press statement that the court postponed the ruling in the case until mid-2025, citing the short time to follow up on the case in detail, listen to witnesses, and inform the team of all the documents, announcing the final formation of the team to defend the case, awaiting the [disbursement] of its fees from the [Benghazi-based] government (...).

The Federal Court announced May 12, 2025, as the date for the trial of Abu Ajila, who faces three charges, including his participation in manufacturing the bomb that was on board the Pan Am plane that crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Regarding Abu Ajila's health condition, the family indicated that the defense team will submit a request to the court to consider the possibility of transferring him to house arrest outside the prisons, as he suffers from chronic diseases.

Meanwhile, the American lawyer [Kobie Flowers] of Brown Goldstein [& Levy] visited Abu Ajila in prison and listened to his health conditions and his treatment inside the prison.

The family stated that the team will also submit a request, immediately after starting its work, for them to attend the trial session, similar to what the families of the plane victims requested, pointing out that the US Congress had passed a law allowing attendance at the sessions before the federal court rejected their request.

Legal bid to give Lockerbie families access to Masud trial

[This is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]

US politicians are being asked to allow people from 21 countries to listen live to the second Lockerbie bombing trial.

A Libyan man is currently in US custody, accused of making the device that destroyed Pan Am 103 on 21 December, 1988.

Of the 270 victims, 190 were from the US, 43 from the UK and the remaining from 19 other nations.

American prosecutors say their families should have access to a phone line to allow them to follow the case.

Trials in US federal courts are not televised and a judge has previously ruled there is no legal basis for allowing such a move.

Abu Agila Masud was handed over to the US authorities in as yet unexplained circumstances in Libya in December 2022.

Appearing in a Washington court under his full name Abu Agila Mohammed Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, the convicted bomb maker faces several charges, including destruction of an aircraft resulting in death.

He has entered a not guilty plea and so far no date for a trial has been set. (...)

Prosecutors from the US Department of Justice say many of the relatives of the victims are too old or infirm to travel to Washington to watch the court proceedings in person.

In their request to US lawmakers, they said: "This combination of advanced age and geographic distance and dispersion from Washington DC means that many victims face significant obstacles to obtain meaningful access to the court proceedings."

The application by the US prosecutors defines "victims" as anyone who suffered "direct or proximate harm" by the bombing, was present at or near the scene when it occurred or immediately afterwards, and their relatives.

On one view, that could include people in Lockerbie who witnessed the crash and its aftermath, along with members of the emergency services and military.

The American prosecutors also argue that the US investigation has involved international co-operation, in particular from police and the Crown Office in Scotland.

They are seeking statutory authority for the court to allow "remote video and telephone access" to preliminary evidential hearings and the trial itself.

Although video is mentioned, the application specifically requests the approval of a dedicated listen-only telephone line. (...)

The first Lockerbie trial took place at a specially-convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Relatives of the victims were able to watch via remote video feeds in Scotland and the US.

That case ended with the conviction of Abdulbasset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life. (...) 

Scottish and American prosecutors alleged that the bombing was the work of the Libyan intelligence service and others were involved along with Megrahi.

The US justice department first announced criminal charges against Abu Agila Masud in December 2020.

They have alleged that he confessed to making the Lockerbie bomb after he was taken into custody following the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi's government in 2012.

Further preliminary steps in US prosecution of Abu Ajila Masud

The US Department of Justice has recently released the following information about the criminal proceedings in Washington DC against alleged Lockerbie bomb maker Abu Ajila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi:

"On September 29, 2023, the parties filed a joint status update, informing Judge Dabney L Friedrich of the status of discovery.  The  parties informed Judge Friedrich that the government had provided four productions to the defense and would shortly be providing a fifth, and that it was working on getting additional materials from Scotland and various countries.  The defense stated that it had received the discovery to date and was reviewing it. 

"On October 2, 2023, Judge Friedrich set a 'tentative' status hearing for December 15, 2023, at 1:00 pm in Courtroom 14.  At this point, we have no reason to believe that this status date will change, despite its 'tentative' status.  If it does change, we will notify you as soon as we are able to."