The accused Lockerbie bombmaker appears in court

WAMU 88.5 | By Maya Garg

Published December 13, 2022 at 8:00 AM CST

Paul Hudson, whose daughter Melina was one of the victims in the Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie bombing, holds up a banner of pictures of additional victims outside the federal court before the trial for a Libyan man accused of making the bomb that exploded the plane.

Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland,inDecember1988, just days before Christmas. All 259 people aboard the plane died in the air and 11 died on the ground.

And for some families, the extradition and appearanceof the Libyan intelligence official Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi in a U.S. federalcourtis ahuge stepin the decades-long search for justice.

The charges brought against Mas’ud include “destruction of aircraft resulting in death,” which carries with it the death penalty, life in prison, and a fine of up to $250,000, or a combination of the prison term and the fine. Federal prosecutors said they do not plan to pursue the death penalty in the case because the punishment was not constitutionally available the year the crime was committed.

We discuss the investigation and the long path to justice for the victims’ families.