First four bin Laden followers to be convicted face life prison terms

By LARRY NEUMEISTER The Associated Press 10/16/01 4:15 PM

NEW YORK (AP) -- The first men convicted of carrying out Osama bin Laden's 1998 edict to kill Americans wherever they are found will face life in prison when they are sentenced Thursday in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.

Security is expected to be exceptionally tight: U.S. marshals armed with shotguns guard the federal courthouse and lockup in lower Manhattan, just blocks from the site of the World Trade Center devastated in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Barricades block the adjacent street, steel posts guard the courthouse

The federal lockup has housed the four defendants since their arrests in the near-simultaneous Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies. The attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, claimed the lives of 12 Americans, and led to an international manhunt of top leaders of al-Qaida, bin Laden's terrorist group.

The six-month trial attracted few spectators beyond government employees and the families of the victims -- even though testimony laid out in detail what the government knew about bin Laden and his network of terrorism.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attack that took down the World Trade Center's 110-story twin towers has spurred new interest in the trial and the evidence the government had collected against bin Laden.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Karas told jurors during the trial that the government had "established the guilt of these defendants ... in a conspiracy to murder the people of the United States merely because they were Americans."

The four defendants were the first convicted by a U.S. jury after bin Laden issued a February 1998 edict to kill all Americans wherever they are found.

They were each convicted of conspiracy charges that alleged their actions followed from bin Laden's order, or fatwa. Bin Laden was indicted in the embassy case, and is a fugitive from justice.

Two defendants -- Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, 24, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 28, -- were eligible for the death penalty but jurors fearful of making the men martyrs declined to impose it.

Al-'Owhali rode the bomb vehicle up to the embassy in Nairobi, slinging stun grenades at guards before fleeing. Mohamed helped to build the bomb that struck the embassy in Dar es Salaam.

Two others -- Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, and Wadih El-Hage, 41 -- were convicted after evidence showed they had played significant roles in al-Qaida.

Prosecutors alleged that El-Hage, the only U.S. citizen among the group, led "a secret double life," traveling the globe to raise money and smuggle weapons like Stinger missiles for al-Qaida's terror plots.

They said Odeh was an explosives expert who was a "technical adviser" to the terror group.

Al-'Owhali and Mohamed face a mandatory life sentence; the other defendants could receive lesser terms. Each will have the opportunity to speak before sentencing.

Defense lawyers say they expect their clients will say little at the hearing. But at previous terrorism trials, defendants have seized the opportunity to criticize the United States.

"Yes, I am a terrorist and am proud of it," Ramzi Yousef said before he was sentenced in 1998 for masterminding the 1993 Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000 others.

Mohammed Salameh, convicted of building and driving the bomb into the trade center, predicted at a 1999 hearing that an act of God would eventually humble the United States, leading to a new world order that would free him.

"I believe that what happened to the Soviet Union will happen to the United States," Salameh said at his second sentencing. He was being resentenced after an appeals court ruled the original was calculated incorrectly.

U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy said he found irony in Salameh's criticisms. "If you had been convicted of this crime under those foreign governments, there would be no resentencing," Duffy said.

"You don't resentence a dead person."

Law enforcement agencies have been advised of Thursday's sentencing and told of the need to step up security in response.

Security had already been increased around the two federal courthouses in downtown Manhattan in the last year. The measures included installation of two of the world's largest hydraulically operated street barricades, and a row of steel posts in front of the courthouse.

Since the trade center attack, visitors are required to submit bags and briefcases for inspection outside the courthouse. Environmental workers have regularly checked air inside court for contamination.

-- Anonymous, October 16, 2001