Local families of Pan Am Flight 103 victims hope for ‘justice now’

Steven Maslowski received two early morning emails Sunday, the first from The Crown Office, which prosecutes crimes in Scotland, the next from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Thirty-four years after his sister Diane and 258 other passengers and crew on Pan Am Flight 103 died in a bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, the man accused of constructing the explosive device was in custody and will face trial in America, the emails informed him.

“This stuff, for 34 years, has been coming out of the blue,” said Maslowski, who lives in Haddonfield.

Diane Maslowski was a 30-year-old bond trader working in London, flying to New York for a job interview as a financial analyst for CNN. She spoke five languages and was learning Mandarin, convinced China was a rising economic power.

“There was just so much potential snuffed out,” he said. “And it caused a bad ripple through all the families. For me, it left a void in my life.”

Eileen Monetti of Cherry Hill said she was “pleasantly surprised to say the least” about the arrest of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi. Her 20-year-old son, Rick, was one of 35 students from Syracuse University who died on Flight 103.

» READ MORE: Accused Libyan bombmaker in Pan Am downing over Lockerbie is in U.S. custody

Every year, families of students lost meet at the university. At the meeting this October, representatives from the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the State Department updated the families on efforts to bring Masud to trial, and they didn’t sound optimistic, Monetti said.

“Those of us who have lost loved ones are getting older,” said Monetti, 76. “You want some justice before you die.”

And the families wanted a trial in the United States.

Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for the bombing, was given a life sentence in the Netherlands but was released after eight years in 2009 because he had prostate cancer. He died in Libya in 2012.

Monetti and her family went to the Netherlands briefly two decades ago while al-Megrahi was on trial, but getting there and staying there wasn’t easy, she said. She said she’ll more than likely go to Washington for some of the court proceedings for Mas’ud.

“I believe — and from what the Department of Justice and FBI have, they believe — they have a very strong case,” Monetti said. “Going on that, I’m hoping he is convicted and he spends a long time in a jail cell in the U.S.”

“My son died in 1988, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have justice now,” Monetti said. “It’s been delayed, true. But at the same time, we have to remember that people who do these evil things have to be held responsible. No matter how long it takes.”

Maslowski and his sister Susan, who also lives in Haddonfield, said they probably won’t attend court proceedings.

“Why open the wound?” Steven Maslowski said. “I’m hoping the FBI has the evidence to convict him.”

The anniversary of the Dec. 21, 1988 bombing is next week.

“Every 21st of December you relive it,” Susan Maslowski said. “You just learn to deal with it.”

Still, time does not stall the pursuit of justice, no matter if a crime happens “three minutes and forty seconds ago or 34 years ago.”

“She was a real go-getter,” she said of her sister. “She was pretty. She had her act together. Loved to travel. She was smart and savvy when it came to money. Those are peoples’ lives that he took, innocent lives.”