A U.S. federal judge postponed on Monday (August 25, 2026) the trial of a Libyan man accused of making the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people, citing new evidence.
The investigation was reopened in 2016 when U.S. authorities learned that Masud had been arrested following Gaddafi’s fall, and had confessed his involvement in the bombing to the new Libyan authorities. He also confessed his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, as well as in an attack on a nightclub in Berlin in 1986, to Libyan authorities during an interrogation in 2012, according to U.S. court documents. Jury selection for the trial of Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, who allegedly worked as an intelligence operative for the government of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi between 1973 and 2011, had been due to start on Wednesday (August 26, 2026).
Judge Dabney Friedrich cited “newly discovered evidence” and “evidence located in other countries” as the reason for postponing the trial.
No new trial date was set but a court hearing was scheduled for September 1 to discuss the status of the case. Masud, who has been in U.S. custody since 2022, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the “destruction of an aircraft resulting in death. If convicted, he could face life in prison. Two alleged Libyan intelligence operatives — Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah — were charged with the bombing and tried by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
