Nearly 38 years after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, relatives of those murdered in the terror attack are facing another painful wait for justice after the trial of an alleged bombmaker was abruptly postponed because of newly discovered evidence.
Jury selection had been scheduled to begin Wednesday in Washington, D.C., in the case against Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, who is accused of constructing the explosive device that killed all 259 people aboard the flight and another 11 people on the ground. Several victims’ relatives had planned to attend the proceedings and “stare down” the accused terrorist in court.
Instead, the emergence of undisclosed new evidence prompted the trial to be delayed, adding yet another unresolved chapter to a case that has stretched across nearly four decades.
“There are some family members that will stare at him — it brings them peace to stare him down,” said Kara Weipz, whose brother, Rick Monetti, was killed in the historic attack. “I don’t care to look at him.”
Monetti was a junior studying communications and was one of 35 Syracuse University students aboard the London-to-New York flight when it was destroyed on Dec. 21, 1988.
Weipz, who was forced to scrap her travel arrangements after Monday’s announcement that the trial had been postponed, said her previous encounters with Al-Marimi during pretrial proceedings left her unsettled by his demeanor.
“He seems very calculating, in my opinion,” Weipz said. “It’s tough, it’s difficult being in the courtroom with him.”
“My purpose for going is to represent my family and learn more about the truth,” said Weipz, who works as a preschool teacher in New Jersey.
For Weipz and other relatives who have spent decades waiting for answers and accountability, the latest postponement represents one more delay in an extraordinarily long legal saga.
“It’s a constant anxiety,” she said of her brother’s death and the ensuing legal battles — which included one conviction in 2001.
“It dredges it all up. You go through a roller coaster of emotions,” she said.
Federal prosecutors allege that Al-Marimi, a onetime Libyan intelligence operative who is now in his mid-70s, traveled to Malta carrying a suitcase containing the bomb. There, according to authorities, he met with fellow conspirators who directed him to program the device’s timer in preparation for the attack.
Authorities contend that Al-Marimi and his alleged accomplices carried out the bombing on orders from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was overthrown and killed during Libya’s civil war in 2011.
Weipz said she hopes the prosecution of Al-Marimi will finally provide additional answers about the plot that took her brother’s life and establish responsibility for another person allegedly involved.
“[I want] a guilty verdict and to hold another person who played a part in his murder accountable,” she said.
But even a conviction, Weipz said, cannot erase what happened or truly end the grief that has followed her family since 1988.
“There’s no such thing as closure,” she said. “This pain doesn’t go away … The question is can you find more peace?”
The bombing claimed 270 lives in all, including 11 residents of Lockerbie on the ground. Among those killed were 190 Americans.
The attack remains the second-deadliest terrorist attack against Americans, behind only the Sept. 11 attacks, and the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out in the United Kingdom.
Another of those killed was 20-year-old Alexia Tsairis, a Syracuse University student who was returning home after participating in a study-abroad program. Her mother, Aphrodite Tsairis, has carried the loss for nearly four decades.
“We were left with holes in our hearts,” said Tsairis, 83, of New Jersey. “There will always be an empty seat at our table.”
Al-Marimi is only the third person to have been criminally charged in connection with the bombing.
Two other suspects, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, went on trial in 2001 before a panel of Scottish judges convened in the Netherlands over their alleged involvement in the attack.
Al-Megrahi was found guilty, while Fhimah was acquitted. In an unexpected development this week, Libyan Airlines announced Tuesday that Fhimah had died, according to the BBC.
Tsairis said the timing of Fhimah’s death caught her attention, particularly because the new evidence emerged at roughly the same time and resulted in the postponement of Al-Marimi’s trial. She wondered whether the two developments could somehow be connected.
“I’m wondering if there’s a connection,” she said. “Maybe he had a change of conscience before his death. Maybe he left a note.”
Tsairis had intended to travel by train to Washington to attend the proceedings. With the case now postponed, the trial is expected to be delayed until approximately January.
“I’d like to see a conviction — but what I really want I can never have back,” she said of losing her daughter.
For Tsairis, the trial offers the possibility of learning more about the people behind the bombing and the motives that led to one of the deadliest terrorist attacks involving Americans.
“My hope is that the trial is going to answer more of the ‘who and why.’ It puts a period at the end of the sentence,” she said.
“I think the world has to know the American justice system will follow you wherever you go.”
If convicted, Al-Marimi faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.
{Matzav.com}
