Strong Emotion Over Lockerbie Announcement

Jan. 30 -- After waiting 10 years for justice in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, relatives of the victims say they are now being denied the right to have their day in court.

A verdict is expected to be issued Wednesday in the case of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, the two Libya nationals on trial in a special Scottish court in the Netherlands on charges of murdering 270 people in the Dec. 21, 1988, terrorist attack.

The court announced today that the verdict would be read the next day — leaving families of American victims and others scattered around the world with little time to travel to the Netherlands for the decision.

"We were hoping that we'd be able to get over there for the verdict, and we're extremely disappointed that we we're given enough time to be able to do this," said Rosemary Wolfe of Alexandria, Va., whose 20-year-old stepdaughter Miriam died in the attack.

"They made a lot of deals in setting up this trial, and this is one thing they could've done."

‘So Contemptuous …’

Susan Cohen of New Jersey, whose 20-year-old daughter Theodora Cohen was among the victims, was also angry that the verdict would be read at 10 a.m. in the Netherlands — 5 a.m. on the East Coast of the United States.

"It is so contemptuous of the American families," she said. "They didn't even have the decency to make it 1 or 2 o'clock."

The U.S. Justice Department, however, is sending as many as 80 relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing to the Netherlands to see the verdict handed down.

"We've spent probobaly close to about $5-6 million on this case. We have families of 270 victims, so it's a lot of people," said Kathryn Turman, director of the Justice Department's Office of Victims of Crime.

Almost 200 others will watch on closed circuit feeds in New York and Washington.

Kathleen Flynn, whose 21-year-old son John was killed in the crash, said: "I have watched the pieces of the puzzle put together by the prosecution and in my heart, I know very well that these two men committed the crime.