Life. Lawyers will appeal, naturally.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001

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Life sentence for U.S. embassy bombers

October 18, 2001 Posted: 11:32 AM EDT (1532 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Three of four Osama bin Laden disciples convicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa received life without parole Thursday.

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 28, was the first of the four defend ants to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He and Mohamed Rashed Al-'Owhali, 24, were sentenced to life without parole for direct involvement in the bombings.

Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, of Jordan, received the same sentence for conspiracy.

Mohamed, convicted of helping to grind TNT and load the bomb that struck the Tanzanian embassy, declined to address the court. But through his attorney, he thanked the jury that they decided against a death sentence.

Al-'Owhali was convicted for bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

A fourth defendant was still awaiting his sentences Thursday for his role in the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Mohamed, a 28-year-old Tanzanian, had been found guilty of carrying out the attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and murdering the 11 people who died there. Mohamed rented the house where the Tanzania bomb was assembled and TNT was ground for the explosive device.

The nearly simultaneous embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured another 4,500 people.

Security was tighter than usual at the U.S. District Courthouse in Manhattan for the sentencing of the men convicted in the only U.S. trial to date against followers of bin Laden. There will be additional checkpoints and more U.S. marshals outside the courthouse, and pedestrian access around the block has been restricted.

Three of the men were found guilty in May of having a hands-on role in the suicide truck bombings of two American embassies in East Africa on August 7, 1998. The fourth man was a longtime aide to Saudi exile bin Laden. The nearly simultaneous embassy attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured another 4,500.

U.S. officials believe bin Laden masterminded the September 11 attacks that brought down the World Trade Center.

On Thursday, five Americans spoke at the sentencing hearing, all asking Judge Leonard Sand to impose a maximum sentence.

Susan Hirsch, whose Kenyan husband died in Tanzania, said: 'There is nothing that you the judge or the state can do to these individuals to soothe the sorrow."

Howard Kavler, whose wife Prabhi worked with him at Kenya embassy and died, called the defendants "cowardly infidels" whose "minds and bodies should rot in prison."

Frank Pressley, who said his life has been a series of operations and nightmares since he survived the Kenyan blast three years ago, said: "These people need to be put away forever."

Jury rejected death penalty calls

Al-'Owhali, a 24-year-old Saudi, and Odeh, a 36-year-old Jordanian, were found guilty of carrying out the first blast in Nairobi, Kenya, and murdering the 213 people who died in it.

Trial evidence and testimony showed al-'Owhali rode in the bomb truck and fired stun grenades at embassy security guards to maneuver the truck closer to the targeted building. Odeh was a technical adviser to the bombing and an admitted soldier in bin Laden's radical Islamic militant group, al Qaeda.

Mohamed was found guilty of carrying out the second blast, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and murdering the 11 people who died there. Mohamed rented the house where the Tanzania bomb was assembled and ground TNT for the explosive device.

Federal prosecutors sought the death penalty against al-'Owhali and Mohamed, but the jury rejected executions for the two men in separate penalty proceedings for each. The jury's cited reasons for opposing capital punishment included the fear that it would turn the bombers into martyrs and further their terrorist cause. The jury also stated the view that life in prison would be a harsher punishment than death by lethal injection.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand has no choice but to sentence al-'Owhali and Mohamed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Sand will almost certainly sentence Odeh to life in prison as well -- the statutory penalty dictated by the murder counts.

Naturalized American could face lighter sentence

Sand has more flexibility with the fourth man convicted -- Wadih el Hage, a 41-year-old naturalized American of Lebanese descent, who faces from 30 years to life behind bars. El Hage, who was a personal secretary to bin Laden when his organization was based in Sudan in the early 1990s, later became a key facilitator of his East Africa cell, sending and receiving messages for the leaders in Afghanistan.

Trial evidence also showed that el Hage used a charity to receive money from bin Laden and to manufacture fake identification cards for his operatives. But el Hage had left Kenya a year before the bombings and was never accused of having a direct role in the attacks.

Like the others, el Hage stands convicted of joining the terrorism conspiracy to kill Americans and to destroy U.S. property. El Hage also was convicted of multiple counts of perjury for lying to cover up his role. His attorneys hope that Sand will impose less than a life sentence.

"Here's a guy that does not have a history of violence -- was alleged to have carried out logistical tasks. He was not involved in the bombings himself, and there was nothing in evidence that he knew about the bombings," said attorney Joshua Dratel.

Unlike the three other defendants, el Hage has not been convicted of murder or any violent acts.

"A life sentence was sufficient for them, it seems disproportionate to give our client the same sentence," Dratel says.

Judge: Frozen assets may aid embassy bombing victims

The three bombers -- al-'Owhali, Odeh, and Mohamed -- all trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s. Odeh was among the al Qaeda operatives who offered military training to Somali tribes opposed to a U.S. troop presence in Somalia in 1993.

Bin Laden was the absent lead defendant, one of 13 indicted fugitives in the case, but a strong presence in the courtroom. His religious decrees, or fatwahs, declaring war on the U.S. and threatening to kill American soldiers and civilians were prime prosecution evidence.

None of the defendants testified during the trial. Only two of them -- Odeh and el Hage -- are expected to speak at their sentencing, according to attorneys. Prosecutors said 10 victims of the blasts -- survivors and family members -- also will speak, The Associated Press reported.

Prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand to award $26.3 million in restitution to the victims.

At a pre-sentencing hearing Wednesday, Sand suggested some of the frozen assets linked to suspected terrorists could go to the families of the victims.

The judge agreed with defense attorneys that their clients could not afford to pay restitution. But he also said millions of dollars may be available, thanks to recent attempts by the Bush administration to choke off the funding of al Qaeda and other terror groups.

"We read on an almost daily basis of the holding or freezing of assets of organizations said to be co-conspirators," Sand said.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001