Lockerbie trial adjourned for another week

Airline Industry Information, Nov 1, 2000

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2000 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

The trial of two Libyan men for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 was adjourned again yesterday (31 October).

The adjournment is the fourth in a row and was granted in order to give the defence team more time to investigate new material provided by the prosecution. The defence apparently wishes to interview about five people named in the dossier before the trial continues. The prosecution examined the material for two weeks after it was received from a 'foreign source' on 4 October.

So far very few details about the new material have surfaced, but it apparently contains information that links the bombing to another country in the Middle East and one in Europe that has not previously come up in the case according to PA News. William Taylor QC for defendant Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi has told the court that the information provided links between German intelligence services and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command.

Megrahi is charged along with Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah of orchestrating the 1988 bombing that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people on board the aircraft and 11 on the ground. The trial commenced in a specially convened Scottish court at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands in May.

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