N.Y. Trial of 4 Suspects in U.S. Embassy Bombings in Africa Begins Today

Four alleged followers of Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden go on trial today for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, amid massive security and restrictions so tight that jury selection will be closed to the public.

The attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam left 224 people dead, including 12 Americans. More than 4,500 others were injured.

The explosions prompted a worldwide reassessment of State Department protective procedures and focused fresh attention on Bin Laden’s international terror network.

During the trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, which likely will last at least six months, prosecutors are expected to dissect Bin Laden’s organization al Qaeda (“The Base”) and present new information about its operations, scope and objectives.

Some of the most vivid government testimony could come from Ali A. Mohamed--a former U.S. Army sergeant who became associated with Bin Laden in the early 1990s. The 48-year-old Mohamed trained the Saudi millionaire’s bodyguards and later scouted potential targets for terrorism in Africa.

He pleaded guilty in October to a series of charges, including conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and plotting to destroy U.S. facilities.

The defendants in the current case are Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian; 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 are charged with conspiring to kill American citizens.

The first two face the death penalty if convicted. The others could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In an unusual action, Judge Leonard B. Sand on Tuesday closed the jury selection process, ruling that potential panelists otherwise might not be frank about their views on the death penalty.

Bin Laden, 43, was charged in the case but remains a fugitive. He is believed to be under the protection of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The U.S. government has offered a $5-million reward for information leading to the capture of Bin Laden, who also is a prime suspect in the bombing last year of the guided-missile destroyer Cole in Yemen that killed 17 sailors.

To increase pressure on the Taliban to turn Bin Laden over, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution Dec. 19 tightening sanctions on Afghanistan unless terrorist training camps there are closed within 30 days and Bin Laden is surrendered.

(Russia, which backed the resolution along with the United States, is concerned not only with Bin Laden helping the opposition in the breakaway republic of Chechnya but also with the danger of Islamic extremism spreading in its backyard.)

After the vote, Taliban officials declared that no evidence exists against Bin Laden and that the sanctions would not cause his expulsion.

According to the bombing indictment, El-Hage helped Bin Laden’s network recruit U.S. citizens to travel throughout the world to act as couriers and engage in financial transactions. Bin Laden, officials contend, has set up front companies, provided bogus travel documents and given false information to authorities worldwide.

The Saudi millionaire reportedly has established terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Somalia and Kenya.

According to court documents, Odeh received explosives training in camps in Afghanistan and later moved to Kenya. There he set up a fishing business with al Qaeda’s funds that was used to support the terrorist group’s activities.

Prosecutors said El-Hage established operations in Kenya and that al-’Owhali was trained in explosives, hijacking, kidnapping, assassination and intelligence techniques in camps affiliated with al Qaeda.

Preparations for the embassy bombings began in earnest in May 1998, the indictment alleges.

The following month, Bin Laden’s followers allegedly purchased a white Suzuki Samurai in Dar es Salaam and rented a house in that city. In July, the papers said, they bought the truck used to carry the bomb.

In late June or early July in Kenya, the court papers said, Bin Laden’s followers bought the truck used in the Nairobi attack. Also in July, al-’Owhali and another alleged terrorist made a videotape “to celebrate their anticipated martyrdom” in the African bombings.

The indictment charges that on the morning of the attacks al-’Owhali rode in the truck containing the bomb destined for the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. He carried four “stun-grenade type devices,” a handgun and keys to the padlocks on the Nairobi truck bomb.

At 10:30 a.m., he got out of the truck as it approached the rear of the embassy, brandished a stun grenade and threw it at a security guard. At the same time, the driver of the truck bomb detonated the device, demolishing a secretarial college and badly damaging the embassy building and a bank, the indictment added.

More than 213 people were killed and more than 4,500 others were injured in that explosion.

Al-’Owhali, who was hurt, was taken to a local hospital, where he tried to hide bullets and the keys to the truck’s padlocks, prosecutors charged.

Ten minutes after the attack in Kenya, the truck carrying the bomb blew up in Dar es Salaam, severely damaging the U.S. embassy. At least 11 people were killed and 85 injured in the second blast.

Prosecutors charged that Khamis Mohamed, who helped buy the Suzuki Samurai and rented a safe house in Dar es Salaam, photographed the explosion.

So far, 22 people have been indicted in the twin attacks; 13 of those charged remain fugitives.

A fifth defendant, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, was scheduled to stand trial in the first group of prosecutions. But in November, Salim allegedly stabbed and critically injured a guard in an attempted escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center alongside the courthouse.

He will face charges in that attack in addition to being tried in the embassy bombings.