ACTION REQUIRED: Secure Your Rights as a Living Crime Victim of the Pan Am 103 Terrorist Attack

Dear relative of a victim of the Pan American flight 103 terrorist attack:
 
We write to inform you of your rights, encourage you to act by July 31 to ensure those rights, and to offer our support.

May 2025 U.S. Criminal Trial

You may know that the trial of alleged bombmaker Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is scheduled to begin in Washington, D.C., on May 12, 2025. This trial is the first—and probably the last—opportunity for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to adjudicate the mass murder of our loved ones on December 21, 1988.
 
On November 18, 2022, a Federal Grand Jury issued a 3-count indictment against Mas’ud. Our criminal case, number 22-cr-392, was assigned to Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (the Court). The trial will occur in Courtroom 7 at E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, located at 333 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., 20001.
 
Your Rights as a Relative of a Terrorism Victim

Many of you may not realize that you qualify as Living Crime Victims of the attack and have various rights that are guaranteed under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004. Our Foundation recently learned that Pan American flight 103 Living Crime Victims are legally defined as:
 
“Those with the following relationships to someone killed in the attack: aunt, cousin, daughter, fiancé/fiancée, grandparent, niece/nephew, parent, partner, sibling, sibling-in-law, son, spouse, step-parent, step-child, uncle, next-of-kin, guardian.”
 
If one of these categories applies to you, you are entitled to specific rights, including case investigation and criminal trial information, court access, and restitution. These rights are supposed to be made without regard for your global geographical location.
 
The Court is required to identify the number of Living Crime Victims who desire physical accommodation at the criminal trial proceedings. No courtroom in any U.S. Courthouse, including Prettyman Courthouse, has the physical space to accommodate all who have a presumptive right to attend a criminal trial, including, in our case, hundreds of family members, the accused’s supporters, the media, and the general public. In cases such as ours, where so many people are interested, family members, or Living Crime Victims, are routinely placed in court overflow rooms that often do not offer the privacy and reasonable protection that are allotted by law.
 
Recent Efforts and Developments Regarding Your Rights
 
Anticipating this scenario, our Foundation in 2023 pressed the U.S. Congress to draft and pass legislation that provides individualized, direct, remote trial access to Pan Am 103 family members on our personal computers. This form of access has never been easier to arrange, with Zoom and other technologies. It was extended to crime victims during the Covid-19 pandemic through the CARES Act, and has been extended to the families of victims of other terrorist attacks in the past. We, the Pan Am 103 families, deserve no less. Recognizing that less than 10 percent of U.S. Federal Legislation is ever signed into law, we labored to ensure that on January 26, 2024, President Biden signed Public Law 118-37, which guarantees this access to us.
 
Obligated to make “reasonable efforts” to enforce this new law, the Court in Washington, D.C., is currently weighing how to grant remote access to the proceedings to us. On May 31, DOJ prosecutors filed a court proposal that included advocate declarations by Victoria Cummock, Paul Hudson, Pamela Dix, Scottish Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, and Kara Weipz in support of individualized, direct, remote trial access via Zoom, a convenient arrangement that would allow us to view court proceedings in the privacy of our own homes.
 
However, on June 17, Mas’ud’s defense team filed a response that argues access should be limited to live feeds at dozens of U.S. Federal Courthouses and at U.S. Embassies and Consulates in other countries. To view the trial at one of these designated sites, hundreds of us would have to travel great distances, some crossing oceans and continents, at our own expense and endure, more publicly than if we log in through Zoom, a trial that is expected to last months.
 
The defense’s position is an outrage and a clear denial of our rights—rights for which we fought long and hard.
 
On June 24, the Court ordered the DOJ prosecution to identify and submit a total number of victims, including our geographical distribution, who desire remote access. We believe there are thousands of Living Crime Victims, a number that, if recognized by the Court, will convince the Court to grant personal remote access, rather than undertake the herculean task and related costs of staffing dozens of remote viewing sites worldwide.
 
Your Immediate Action is Required
 
Right now, we are at a critical moment and need your help. You have the opportunity to affect the Court’s decision by exercising your rights and establishing yourself as a Living Victim of the Pan Am 103 attack.
 
In order to support and facilitate the DOJ prosecution’s effort to provide the Court with the most comprehensive list of Living Crime Victims, the PA103LL Foundation is reaching out to our extensive network.
 
You can enroll in the Department of Justice’s Victim Notification System (VNS) to receive information about the upcoming trial proceedings and declare your interest in personalized trial access.
 
You can contact the DOJ by email at usadc.panam103@usdoj.gov or by phone at (202) 252-7045. Please provide the following information:

• Your name
• The name or names of your family member(s) killed in the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack
• Your qualifying relationship to each victim
• Your contact information, including mailing address, email address, and phone number

Alternatively, you can:

• Use this registration link
• Speak with PA103LL staff at (305) 665-6740
• Use WhatsApp toll-free to call or text (305) 775-1071
• Reply to this email sent from info@PA103LL.org

Whichever way you choose to declare your interest to the DOJ, it is urgent that they—or we—hear from you by Wednesday, July 31. Even if you do not plan to view the trial, declaring your interest could help all family members receive direct, virtual trial access. Please share this information with other family members. There is strength in numbers.
 
We are ready to support you and continue advocating for you. Do not allow the Court to rule without hearing from you.
 
We implore you to give voice to your murdered loved ones and bear witness to justice.

In unanimity,