WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday postponed a trial in the U.S. for a former Libyan intelligence official charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, citing the discovery of new evidence that defense attorneys want to examine in the nearly 40-year-old case.Jury selection was scheduled to begin Wednesday for the federal trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi in Washington, D.C. His trial will be the first in the U.S. for the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing.U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s order didn’t specify the nature of the newly discovered evidence.Al-Marimi’s lawyers say prosecutors disclosed the new evidence to them on Saturday and added that their “constitutional and ethical obligations require the defense to investigate this development.” Defense attorney Laura Koenig, an assistant federal public defender, declined to elaborate in response to an Associated Press inquiry.
The judge scheduled a Sept. 1 hearing in Washington to discuss the status of the case. Friedrich’s brief order cited the complex nature of the case, the newly discovered evidence and “the need for the defense to determine how best to defend this case” as reasons to postpone the trial.Al-Marimi is charged in the U.S. with making the bomb that downed the airplane, killing 270 people, most of them Americans.
