New evidence in Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 103 bombing case pushes federal judge to postpone trial

The criminal trial of a former Libyan intelligence official charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was postponed by a federal judge Monday after defense attorneys said they received new evidence over the weekend from prosecutors.

Jury selection was set to begin Wednesday in Washington, D.C., in the trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi.

It would have been the first U.S. trial stemming from the bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

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District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not specify the nature of the novel evidence in his order.

Al-Marimi’s defense team said prosecutors handed them the evidence on Saturday, adding in their request to the judge that their "constitutional and ethical obligations require the defense to investigate this development." LONG-LOST PAN AM CRASH WRECKAGE FOUND DECADES AFTER DEADLY DISASTER THAT RESHAPED AIRLINE SAFETY The judge granted Al-Marimi’s lawyers the delay and scheduled a status hearing on Sept.

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Al-Marimi is charged with making the bomb that downed the Pan Am flight, killing all 259 passengers and crew members.

The plane came down over the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland, where it destroyed an entire city block and killed 11 people on the ground.

Citizens of 21 countries were among the victims, including 190 Americans and 43 people from the United Kingdom .

Among those aboard were 35 Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad.

The bomb exploded less than 40 minutes into the flight, which had departed from London Heathrow Airport and was headed to John F.

Kennedy International Airport in New York City .

CUBAN EX-PRESIDENT RAUL CASTRO INDICTED ON CHARGES INCLUDING MURDER, CONSPIRACY TO KILL US NATIONALS Kara Weipz, board president of the nonprofit Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told The Associated Press that her organization has not received any details about what caused the delay in Al-Marimi’s trial.