FBI identifies 400 ‘Lockerbie bombing victims’ ahead of US trial of suspect

An international search by the FBI has identified more than 400 people from 10 countries who lost family members in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing or suffered emotional harm in its aftermath.

The US law enforcement agency was trying to track down people directly affected by the atrocities ahead of the trial of a Libyan suspect next year.

A federal court in Washington DC is ruling on how to grant remote access to the case against alleged bomb maker Abu Agila Masud.

The 417 people who responded to the FBI survey included more than 100 people from Scotland, including 32 from Lockerbie itself.

A total of 244 respondents were from the US and 164 from Great Britain.

Others came from the Netherlands, Spain, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Canada, Mozambique, Australia and Jamaica.

Pan Am 103 was shot down as it flew from Heathrow to New York four days before Christmas, 36 years ago.

The plane fell apart after a bomb exploded in the hold at an altitude of 30,000 feet, killing all 259 passengers and crew on board.

A further eleven people were killed in Lockerbie when wreckage from the plane destroyed their homes.

In 2001, a Scottish court in the Netherlands ruled after a nine-month trial that the bombing was the work of Libyan intelligence.

Abdelbasset al-Megrahi was convicted of playing a key role in the plot and given a life sentence, but was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after becoming terminally ill with cancer. He died three years later in Libya.

Abu Agila Masud was taken into US custody in 2022 and will stand trial in Washington DC next May, accused of making the bomb that destroyed the plane.

Before the trial, a group representing American relatives of the victims requested remote access to the proceedings, saying many of them were too old and infirm to travel to Washington DC for the case.

US lawmakers subsequently passed legislation to give the family members remote access “regardless of their location.”

To help the judge decide how to do that, the FBI wanted to identify and interview two groups of people affected by the bombing.

The first included those who were “present at or near the site of the bombing in Lockerbie when the bombing took place or immediately afterwards” and who suffered “immediate or direct harm (e.g. physical or emotional harm)” as a result.

Many of the Scots who responded to the survey identified themselves as members of that group, including military personnel and rescue workers who took part in the operation to recover the victims’ bodies.

The second group included “the spouse, legal guardian, parent, child, brother, sister, next of kin or other family member of someone killed at Pan Am 103 or killed on site in Scotland or suffered harm, or anyone who has a relationship of similar significance to anyone killed or injured in the attack.”

Most respondents told the FBI they would like video access via a web link or app so they could watch the process from home. A slightly smaller number would also be audio-only content.

‘Tangible trauma’

Masud’s defense has suggested that people could view the case in courthouses and embassies, but the US government argued that this option was “logistically unreasonable, infeasible, impractical and unworkable”.

Instead, it advocates using a ‘Zoom for Government’ platform, access to which is strictly controlled.

Participants would be told that recording or rebroadcasting the trial would be illegal. The software would include technology to identify anyone breaking the rules.

In a statement to the court, attorneys for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said: “These families have suffered for more than thirty years.

“This attack was the largest terrorist attack on the US before September 11, 2001… it remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Britain’s history.

“The law passed by Congress applies only to this case.

“Given the death and destruction left behind by this bombing, and the palpable trauma and pain of the many victims spread across the world, one can only hope that a new law like this will never be necessary again.”