Lockerbie Bombing Trial Postponed, Families Face Another Wait

The first trial on American soil connected to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been postponed, extending a decades-long wait for justice for the families of the 270 victims. The case against Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, was set to begin Wednesday in Washington, D.C., but a judge delayed it Monday after citing the discovery of new evidence, the nature of which was not disclosed.

Al-Marimi is the first person to face prosecution in the United States for the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, which was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 more on the ground. A majority of the victims were American. The breakthrough in the case came in 2017 when US officials obtained a 2012 interview in which Al-Marimi allegedly admitted to building the bomb and working with two conspirators. An FBI affidavit states he claimed the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that the late leader Moammar Gadhafi thanked the team afterward.

For families like that of Suse Lowenstein, an 82-year-old artist whose son Alex was on the flight, the delay is another painful chapter in a long story. In her Montauk, New York, backyard stands "Dark Elegy," a collection of 76 life-size statues depicting the grief of women who lost loved ones. "The grief, everything, stays the same, just like this. This is always here," she said. "And so, the feelings don’t go away."

Aphrodite Tsairis, whose daughter Alexia died in the attack, had planned to travel to Washington for the trial's start. She called the delay unsurprising. "From the very beginning, we had to fight adversity," she said. "So it is not surprising to hear there are more impediments to justice being carried out." Tsairis, who attended the 2000 trial in the Netherlands that convicted one accomplice and acquitted another, views the proceedings as "an academic exercise" rather than an emotional journey. "This isn’t about closure," she said. "This is more about putting the period at the end of the sentence kind of thing."

Bert Ammerman, who lost his brother Thomas, believes the trial should not be the end of the story. He argues other nations were involved and should be held responsible, even though Libya formally accepted responsibility in 2003 and agreed to pay nearly $3 billion to victims' families. "This does not belong in the criminal arena," said Ammerman, founding president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103. "This was an attack on the U.S. This was an act of war."

Stephanie Bernstein, who lost her husband Michael, finds the emergence of new evidence "astonishing" but also a reason for hope. "It shows that there is still information out there, so that makes the delay somewhat less difficult to accept," said the 75-year-old Maryland resident. "We are hopeful that it will increase our knowledge of what happened."

Lucas Lowenstein, Suse's son, hopes any new information will settle lingering theories. "You can really go down a rabbit hole in wondering, ‘What did we miss? Is there more?’" he said. "At this point, I feel that they got the right people. I don’t believe there’s more to it." The 57-year-old, who lost his brother Alex, says his approach to life changed fundamentally that day. Their father Peter, who dedicated himself to seeking justice and airline security reforms, died in 2018. "My parents more or less died that day," Lucas said. "So I knew then -- and know now — that I have to outlive them. I got to be there for them."

Out in Montauk, Suse Lowenstein finds peace among the reminders of her son. Alex's singed red jacket, recovered from the wreckage and cleaned by Lockerbie residents, hangs by her studio door. She wears it when welding. A photo shows Alex on a bluff above the waves. Two white statues of Alex and Lucas as boys sit by the pool. In a shaded corner stands "Dark Elegy," her life's work, in which she represented herself twice — once curled in pain, once holding herself up. "First, I created myself in the position that my body took when the phone call came," she explained. "Then I created myself again, basically holding myself up and staying alive."

Lowenstein shares the frustration at the delay but remains confident Al-Marimi will be convicted. She hopes the elderly defendant lives long enough to face his fate. "I hope they convict him and put him into the worst prison that the Americans have," she said.