Latest news with #Lockerbie
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Sandy Gall dead at 97: Veteran News at Ten presenter dies at home
News at Ten presenter Sandy Gall has died at home aged 97, his family have said. The veteran anchor was the face of the show for 20 years, before retiring in 1992 to carry out charity work. Working at the Aberdeen Press and Journal and Reuters before joining ITN, he covered everything from the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. He worked at the foreign news agency as a correspondent for a decade, with one of his first assignments to cover the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas in 1963. While working on the ground for ITN was one of the few journalists to remain in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, having watched the first American marines go ashore at Da Nang, filing pictures from inside a helicopter gunship. In a tribute, his family said: 'His was a great life, generously and courageously lived.' This is a breaking story, more to follow.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Rail disruption following damage to overhead wires between Lockerbie and Carlisle
Rail passengers have been urged not to travel north or south of Carlisle after damage to the overhead line. Pictures show a tree on the line between Lockerbie and Carlisle which has caused delays and cancellations on the line. Passengers are being urged not the travel on June 30, and all tickets will be valid on any Avanti service using the same route on July 1. A spokesperson for Avanti West Coast said: 'Due to damage to overhead wires between Lockerbie and Carlisle, we are advising customers not to travel north or south of Carlisle today, 30 June. READ MORE: Major works to begin in Court Square in the Autumn | News and Star 'If you were due to travel to or from Scotland today, your ticket dated June 30 can be used on any Avanti West Coast train, via the same route tomorrow July 1. 'If you abandoned your journey as a result of today's disruption, your ticket dated June 30 can be used on any Avanti West Coast train, via the same route tomorrow July 1.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
DNA retrieved from suitcase pulled from wreckage may solve Lockerbie bombing riddle
Investigators have made a potential breakthrough in the Lockerbie bombing case after finding DNA evidence from the suitcase used to carry the explosive. Scientists are reported to have gathered genetic profiles from the suitcase lining and an umbrella packed into the luggage compartment of the doomed Pan Am Flight 103 after re-examining items salvaged from the wreckage in December 1988. Prosecutors now hope to be able to link the profile to alleged bomb-maker Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, known as Masud, who is waiting to go on trial in the US, with the DNA to be compared to swabs taken from the suspect. The Libyan, who is accused of playing a major role in what remains the UK's worst terror atrocity that killed 270 people, was due to face a jury last month but the trial was postponed as a result of his poor health and the complexity of the case. It is now not expected to begin until next spring. The Sunday Times has reported that US court papers identify a list of expert witnesses for the prosecution, including Dr Nighean Stevenson, a leading authority in DNA analysis at the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), who has re-examined exhibits from the crash site more than 30 years ago. The papers state: 'Dr Stevenson examined items relating to an umbrella and an item relating to the lining of a suitcase. 'These items were examined using specialised lighting, and DNA samples were taken from each. Part of the wreckage of a passenger jet that came down on Lockerbie in December 1988 Alleged bomb-maker Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, known as Masud, is waiting to go on trial in the US The scenes of devastation in the wake of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 'The DNA profiles obtained from these items were of varying quality and were generally commensurate with the expectations of these items.' They add: 'Analysis of a DNA reference sample relating to the accused nominal [Masud] has yet to be carried out. 'When a DNA profile relating to this individual has been generated, it will thereafter be compared to any suitable DNA profiles which have already been obtained.' Masud, 74, is accused of making the bomb which brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, on December 21, 1988. All 259 passengers and crew on board were killed along with 11 residents in the town when wreckage fell to the ground. Masud, a bomb-maker for the Libyan External Security Organisation, was extradited to the US at the end of 2022 after allegedly confessing to building the Lockerbie bomb and taking it in a suitcase from Tripoli to Malta. His defence team are set to argue that the confession was extracted in Libya under duress and is therefore inadmissible. But Dick Marquise, the FBI special agent who led the US end of the original investigation said: 'If you've got his DNA [in the suitcase]... it would knock down the building blocks of his potential defence.' Mr Marquise told the publication he was not aware of any DNA evidence collected in the immediate aftermath of the bombing in 1988, adding: 'It was much too new a science.' Masud, who was taken into US custody in 2022, will be the first person accused of playing a part in the bombing to be tried in a US court. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi and co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fahima stood trial in a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands during 2000 and 2001. Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder and sent to Scotland to serve his life. Fahima was acquitted and returned to Libya. The Scottish Government released terminally ill Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009, three years before he died of cancer.
BBC News
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The long wait for answers over Lockerbie bombing grows longer
Major television productions are bringing the story of the Lockerbie bombing to a new global audience, but the real life drama of the trial of a new Libyan suspect has been delayed once Agila Mohammed Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi, known as Masud, had been due to face a Washington jury last month, accused of making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 and killed 270 12 May starting date was abandoned because of problems with his health and the complexity of the case, and the trial is now scheduled to start in April, date was set at the District of Columbia District Court, where Masud listened with the help of a translator and was expressionless throughout. After the hearing, relatives of American victims of the bombing told BBC News of their disappointment that the trial is now scheduled to start 50 weeks later than originally Weipz is the president of the US group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 and lost her 20-year-old brother Richard Monetti on the plane."I'm just going to pray that it stays at 20 April," she said. "I was 15 when this happened, and I'm 52 now and among the relatives I'm considered young."A lot of our family members are in their seventies and eighties and unfortunately, we lose them weekly or monthly now."The travesty in all of this that they're not seeing the justice that they've worked 37 years to see."That's what concerns us the most, that this trial will come around and we'll have lost more family members." Victoria Cummock's husband John was coming home from a business trip to Europe a day earlier than planned, to surprise his founder of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie Legacy Foundation, Mrs Cummock said: "We've lived through 36 years of delays and postponements simply because this is an international case filled with politics."Thirty six years with seven different administrations in America have really collided with the families' search for accountability and justice."It's no surprise that our mission to hold them to account is being delayed."Mrs Cummock added she was concerned that President Trump's ban on Libyan citizens travelling to the US could affect the said: "It just seems like it's a very slow journey to getting this case started." Masud's health problems Masud has been in US custody since December 2022 and has pled not guilty to the Tunisian-born Libyan is in his seventies and is understood to have diabetes and heart family in Libya has already expressed concerns over the delays to the case, saying he's an innocent new trial date was fixed after a joint motion submitted by the prosecution and the defence, both of whom raised the international nature of the evidence and witnesses.A series of crucial legal arguments will have to be resolved before the trial can go ahead, with the judge Dabney Friedrich describing the 20 April date as "tentative."Those will include the admissibility of a confession Masud is alleged to have made while in custody in 2012, following the collapse of Colonel Gaddafi's regime. Another complication is the fact that new information on the case is still emerging, almost four decades after the attack.A book published in France revealed the existence of documents said to have been retrieved from the archives of the Libyan intelligence service, of which Masud is alleged to have been a proved genuine, those documents detail his involvement in preparations for the attack on Pan Am more than 24 years since the first Lockerbie trial, when three Scottish judges convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdulbasset al-Megrahi of playing a key role in the plot. Megrahi was jailed for life but released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government in 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died three years later at home in release infuriated many of the American relatives, which is why they have set so much store on the trial of Masud, the first suspect to face an American court over believe it will deliver the justice they were denied by the Scottish legal bombing remains the worst terror attack in British history and claimed the lives of 43 UK citizens. 'This isn't a normal criminal case' Some, but not all, of the British relatives have never accepted the verdict against Megrahi, including the Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga was on the plane."I think they're just waiting for people like me to pop our clogs and get out of the way," he said."I'm still pretty cynical about the whole thing. I would like to be proved wrong but I can't see it happening."As far as I'm concerned, who made the bomb and who put in on the plane are secondary as to who were the main criminals."They were the group of people who had all the warnings that this was going to happen and warned their own people but didn't warn the public."The big budget television dramas may have pushed the Lockerbie bombing back into the public eye but it's clear that there's a very long way to go before a jury delivers its verdict on Friedrich warned that if things are not done in a timely manner, there's a risk the trial could "slip" into she reminded everyone in the court: "This isn't a normal criminal case."
The National
05-06-2025
- General
- The National
US judge schedules Lockerbie bombing suspect's trial for April 2026
The US judge overseeing the case of Lockerbie bombing suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Masud has set jury selection for April 20, 2026. Judge Dabney Friedrich acknowledged the ' complicated nature ' and 'voluminous discovery of evidence' in the case surrounding the 1988 attack that resulted in the explosion of a Pan Am flight and the deaths of 270 people in Scotland. Mr Masud, 73, limped into court and donned headphones to listen to the status conference in Arabic. He looked straight ahead for the whole proceedings, never glancing at victims' families, who took up several rows of court seats. He didn't appear to communicate with his court-appointed lawyer during proceedings. In 2023, Mr Masud pleaded not guilty in connection to one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in UK and US history. Only one other person, former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, has been convicted for the bombing. After his conviction in 2001, Megrahi spent seven years in a Scottish prison, but he was eventually released on compassionate grounds and died in Libya in 2012. In 2003, Libya claimed responsibility for the attack that brought down the plane. The US government filed charges against Mr Masud in 2020, but it took more than two years to extradite him from Libya. Mr Masud's health problems, lawyer changes and logistical problems have caused the trial planning to move at a snail's pace. A court transcript seen by The National show the methodical nature of the case. At least three depositions of foreign citizens will have to take place outside the US before the trial begins, according to the court transcript. Though specifics are not disclosed, ways of potentially dealing with Mr Masud's health problems are also discussed. His court-appointed lawyers have promised to provide updates about his medical condition to better prevent any delays. In court on Thursday, Judge Friedrich emphasised the need to stay on schedule. 'I want this to be aggressive,' she said, referring to trial planning dates and schedule preparations. Mr Masud's lawyer told the judge that although there is 'some disagreement' about the extent of his medical problems, both defence and prosecutors are on the same page about how to deal with it going forward. All 259 people on board the Pan Am flight died in the attack and 11 people were killed on the ground by falling debris on December 21, 1988, shortly after the plane took off from London bound for New York. Of the victims, 190 were US citizens, along with people from the UK and Argentina, India, South Africa and Spain, among others.
