Jury selection for accused builder of Lockerbie bomb set for 2026
A trial related to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland has set its jury selection for April 20, 2026. The attack killed 270 people, including 35 Syracuse University students. Meghan Hendricks | Daily Orange File Photo
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The judge overseeing a trial related to the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, set jury selection for April 20, 2026, The National reported Tuesday.
The terrorist attack killed 270 people, including 35 Syracuse University students. The man accused of making the bomb, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir al-Marimi, was scheduled to sit in front of a Washington, D.C., jury last month, according to the BBC.
The Libyan national, known as Masud, has been in United States custody since December 2022 and pleaded not guilty to three federal charges. Judge Dabney Friedrich described the April date as “tentative” due to pending legal arguments.
The attack targeted the flight on its way to New York City from London with a planted bomb in a suitcase in the plane’s cargo hold. The bombing killed all 259 people on board, including the SU students and two from SUNY Oswego. Debris from the explosion killed 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie.
The other suspect of the bombing, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, also of Libya, was convicted of the attack in 1992 in Scotland and was released from prison under Scottish law, allowing the release of prisoners with terminal illnesses.
Megrahi died shortly after in 2012 from metastatic prostate cancer. He maintained his innocence, and Libya took responsibility for the bombing in 2003.
The 1988 terrorist attack was brought back into the mainstream in January when Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph’s book “Lockerbie: A Father’s Search for Justice” was released. A Peacock show based on the novel, “Lockerbie: A Search for Truth,” was released shortly after.
Last fall, SU announced it would end the yearlong Lockerbie Scholarship program, replacing it with a proposed immersion program. Over 400 signed an open letter condemning the changes, and former Lockerbie Scholars criticized the decision.
On May 24, the university renewed the program for fall 2026 with a “reimagined initiative.” The program will begin in fall 2026.
