Update: Feds unseal new charges in Pan Am bombing that killed Fargo man

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has unsealed charges against a Libyan bombmaker in the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The attack killed 259 people in the air and an additional 11 on the ground.

Fargo South High School graduate Steven Berrell was among the 270 people who were killed. Berrell was with a group of students from Syracuse University who were returning home from a trip to Europe.

The Pan Am Boeing 747 was en route from London to New York.

“It just helps bring additional closure to the situation, so that’s always a positive. Just an amazing amount of work that’s gone on over the last 32 years of this case and the fact that the FBI continued to be diligent and hard pressing and trying to bring this last suspect to justice,” Steven Berrell’s brother Rob Berrell said.

Though some comfort comes to seeing the case come to a close, another person behind bars doesn’t make up for the hole left in their hearts.

“Still doesn’t change anything for our family,and the families of the other 269 victims from that terrorist attack I don’t think it changes much in terms of how we feel about it,” Berrell said.

The charges were announced on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing and in the final news conference of Attorney General William Barr’s tenure, underscoring his personal attachment to a case that unfolded during his first stint at the Justice Department.