Extremist Wanted to Kill Americans, Embassy Bomb Jury Told

NEW YORK —  The twin bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people were part of a plot by Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden to murder Americans throughout the world, a prosecutor charged Monday in an opening statement at the trial of four alleged terrorists.

The lawyer for one of the defendants confirmed that his client helped grind the powerful explosive used in the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, which killed 11 and left destruction spread over a mile-and-a-half area.

In an unusual statement, Jeremy Schneider, representing Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian, told the jury that his client had accepted a “jihad job,” which included grinding some of the TNT used in the Tanzanian embassy bomb.

Schneider sought to present Mohamed as naive--even giving the TNT grinder to his mother later as a gift. “That’s the kind of simplistic man he is,” Schneider said.

With riveting detail, Assistant U.S. Atty. Paul Butler described the grist of diplomacy, the ordinary events at the embassy in downtown Nairobi, Kenya, on the Friday morning of Aug. 7, 1998.

Outside, the streets and buildings were packed with people. Students studied at a secretarial college. Cars, trucks and buses were lined up in rush-hour traffic--including a bus bringing children to school.

“Then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed,” Butler told the jury of six men and six women.

“A truck entered the rear parking lot. . . . In the back of that truck was a massive bomb, which exploded with devastating force.

“The American Embassy and a tall office building were shattered. The secretarial college collapsed and was completely destroyed.

“That’s only what the bomb did to concrete and metal buildings. What it did to human beings that day defies description. Words and numbers just cannot capture the horror.”

Almost simultaneously, another truck bomb exploded at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam.

“The story about to unfold before you is long, complicated and chilling,” Butler told the jurors, who listened attentively.

“The government commits to you that by the end of this trial, you will find that each of these defendants were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of entering into an illegal agreement to work with Osama bin Laden and others to kill Americans anywhere in the world they can be found.”

Twelve Americans were killed in the attacks; more than 4,500 others were injured--many blinded by flying glass from blown-out windows.

Defense lawyers sought in opening statements to prepare the jury for the disturbing images and wrenching eyewitness testimony that the government is expected to present during the trial, which could last a year.

On trial in addition to Mohamed are Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-’Owhali, 23, of Saudi Arabia; Wadih El-Hage, 40, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon; and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, a 35-year-old citizen of Jordan.

All the defendants are accused of conspiring to kill American citizens. Mohamed and Owhali could face the death penalty, the others life in prison without parole if found guilty. Prosecutors charge that both Mohamed and Owhali actually participated in the embassy attacks.

“You will be angry and bitter from things you see and hear in this courtroom,” said Anthony Ricco, representing Odeh.

“You are going to see images that stay with you forever,” said Schneider. “You are going to hear victims. You may gasp, you may turn away. You may get sick to your stomach. . . . You are allowed to react. We ask you to withhold your judgment in this case.”

Schneider said Mohamed was merely a “pawn” who was used by people. “I think there is a hierarchy of evil in this world,” he said.

Ricco said Odeh had no reason to kill people in Kenya because his wife is from that country.

Sam Schmidt described his client El-Hage as a mediator and “not a confrontational troublemaker.”

“He would never participate in a criminal conspiracy to kill women and children,” he told the jury.

Butler painted a different picture. He charged that El-Hage lied repeatedly before a grand jury investigating Bin Laden. The prosecutor said that Owhali, who the government contends rode in the Kenyan bomb truck, had a meeting with the Saudi dissident and asked Bin Laden for a “mission.”

“That mission turned out to be the bombing of the American Embassy in Kenya,” Butler told the jury. The prosecutor said three of the defendants had confessed.

In a pretrial hearing, lawyers sought to have the confessions declared inadmissible. When the judge ruled against them, the three said they were innocent.

Butler said some of the defendants show no remorse.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mohamed Owhali did not just confess, he bragged and boasted,” the prosecutor said. “. . . He bragged how he rode in the bomb truck that day to the embassy in Nairobi.

“You will also hear that the defendant Khalfan Mohamed confessed. He confessed to his role in the bomb plot in Tanzania.

”. . . You will also hear that Mohamed Odeh confessed.”

Court papers charge that Odeh was a member of Bin Laden’s organization, al Qaeda (The Base), that he trained at camps in Afghanistan and that he operated a fishing business in Kenya that was used to support members of the terrorist cell.

Butler charged that Odeh left Kenya the night before the bombings, using a false passport after shaving his beard to change his appearance.

Ricco told the jury, however, that Odeh joined al Qaeda to help people who were poor “and in some instances fighting.”

All the defendants sat quietly during the opening statements. A small curtain at the end of the defense table prevented the jurors from seeing that each of the men wore leg shackles.

The decision to shackle the defendants during the trial came after El-Hage leaped past U.S. marshals and charged toward Judge Leonard B. Sand during a pretrial hearing in June 1999. El-Hage was quickly overpowered.

Butler told the jurors that they would hear from a witness who was a sworn member of al Qaeda and who had conversations with Bin Laden.

“He will tell you what al Qaeda is, how it was formed, and how it worked,” he said, explaining that the witness left the group two years before the embassy bombings. “So, he’s going to merely set the stage for those bombings.”

The prosecutor said the witness approached the American government after he stole money from Bin Laden. In an attempt to get protection for himself and his family, he offered to provide information.

Several family members who lost relatives in the Kenya explosion were in the courtroom.

Robert Kirk Jr., whose wife, Arlene, was killed and who worked at the embassy but was at home when the bomb exploded, said the trial was a step “in the right direction toward justice.”

Bin Laden, who was charged in the case, remains a fugitive. He is believed to be under the protection of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors so far have charged 22 people in the embassy attacks; 13 remain fugitives.