FBI Brings Kenya Blast Suspect to New York

Flanked by top Clinton administration officials, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh announced Thursday that U.S. agents had brought a confessed terrorist and would-be suicide bomber to New York and charged him with the murders of the 12 Americans who died in the attack three weeks ago on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

A second suspect in the alleged conspiracy was reportedly in American hands as well, with an official statement about his status expected imminently. “We may have some announcements to make in the next 24 hours,” Freeh said when asked about the second man.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger joined Freeh as he made the announcement in an FBI auditorium here. There was a mood of subdued triumph about the swift arrest and spiriting away of the suspect from Africa into the U.S. judicial system.

Reno said the successful turn in the case came after “the United States mounted the most extensive overseas criminal investigation in its history.” Yet, even while describing the development as a reflection of “substantial progress” in the case, Freeh warned that “we are still at the very initial stages of a far-reaching international investigation.”

The suspect, Mohammed Rashed Daoud Owhali, described as a native of Yemen who sometimes used the alias Khalid Salim, was arrested by Kenyan police soon after the Aug. 7 bombing and turned over to FBI agents a few days later. Although he originally professed his innocence, the FBI complaint said, he finally confessed to a key role in the terrorist attack on the embassy.

The FBI said that Owhali, who claimed he had intended to die in the blast, acknowledged that he was a follower of Osama bin Laden and had trained in Afghan terrorist camps that the U.S. has linked to the dissident Saudi millionaire.

The Clinton administration believes Bin Laden masterminded the simultaneous attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Last week, President Clinton ordered retaliatory cruise missile strikes on Afghan camps and at a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan suspected of manufacturing precursors to chemical weapons.

During a four-minute appearance in federal court in New York, Owhali was ordered held without bail pending a hearing Sept. 28.

The slim, short defendant with a dark beard and mustache wore drab blue prison clothing and tennis shoes and answered questions put to him by Magistrate Judge Sharon E. Grubin through an interpreter. Owhali’s right hand was bandaged.

“Yes,” he replied simply when Grubin told the defendant that he had the right to remain silent because any statements he made could be used against him by prosecutors.

The charges against Owhali, listed in an official FBI complaint released in court, narrated a dramatic story. According to the FBI, which said it based its account on his confession, Owhali traveled to Nairobi from Lahore, Pakistan, on July 31 and joined fellow conspirators Aug. 4 as they loitered outside and “reconnoitered” at the U.S. Embassy, presumably watching the comings and goings of vehicles into the compound.

On the day of the terrorist bombings, Owhali was in the vehicle that headed to the Nairobi embassy with “an improvised explosive device,” the FBI said. When the vehicle was challenged by an embassy guard, the suspect reportedly stepped out of the vehicle. He then threw “a small grenade-like device,” the FBI said.

The vehicle exploded moments later, and Owhali received lacerations and abrasions on his face and hands and a large wound in the back. When he was treated for these injuries at a Nairobi hospital, he threw away two keys that fit a padlock on the wreckage of the bomb-laden vehicle and also three bullets from a gun that he had left in the vehicle. These items were later recovered by hospital workers.

Kenyan police arrested Owhali two days after the blast, although he told them he had received the injuries while standing in the bank building near the embassy when the explosion occurred. Kenyan authorities let FBI agents question him in Nairobi on Aug. 12. Owhali confessed to the U.S. agents a week later, the FBI said.

Owhali told the FBI that he had been trained in hijacking, kidnapping and the use of explosives at various camps in Afghanistan, some affiliated with Bin Laden. He had attended various meetings with Bin Laden, Owhali told the FBI, and knew that the Saudi businessman and other radical Islamic leaders had issued a fatwa against the United States that declared it was proper to kill U.S. officials and civilians anywhere in the world.

In a financial statement he filled out before appearing in federal court in New York, Owhali said he was single and unemployed, had received $12,000 from his father and owned a 1992 Chevrolet Caprice.

Owhali arrived in the United States on Wednesday night. Kenyan Atty. Gen. Amos Wako said in a statement Thursday that the second suspect, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, also had been turned over to the FBI for transportation to the United States.

Odeh, a resident of Kenya, was arrested in Pakistan on the day of the terrorist attacks and turned over a week later to Kenyan authorities, who quickly allowed FBI agents to question him.

Freeh and the other top administration officials were effusive in their praise of the Kenyan government for its cooperation and readiness to transfer the suspects to U.S. custody.

The extradition, while undertaken in secrecy, was in line with the prevailing mood in Kenya. Ever since last week’s U.S. missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan, the desire to bring the bombers to justice on Kenyan soil has given way to deeply rooted fears about more terrorist attacks.

“Part of our fear about holding the trial here--and this engages the mind of every Kenyan--is the security of this country,” said James Orengo, a leading opposition member of parliament. “Everyone anticipates that if the trial is here, there will be another attack.”

Times staff writer Dean E. Murphy in Nairobi contributed to this report.

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Bombing Arrest Timeline

Events connected with the arrests of suspects in the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania:

* Aug. 7: Pakistani authorities arrest Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, also known as Mohammed Sadik Howaida, in Karachi as a suspect in the bombings as he is attempting to fly to near the Afghan border with a suspicious passport.

* Aug. 10: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announces a $2-million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of terrorists responsible for the bombings.

* Aug. 11: Six Iraqis and six Sudanese are detained by police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but not charged with the bombings. A Somali and a Turk are also arrested.

* Aug. 16: A Pakistani official says that suspect Odeh confessed to being involved in the bombings and was turned over to Kenyan authorities.

* Aug. 18: Three more suspects are arrested--two Arab nationals and an Afghan--as they try to cross into Afghanistan. The Arabs were reportedly identified by suspect Odeh in his confession.

* Aug. 27: U.S. authorities charge suspect Mohammed Rashed Daoud Owhali, alias Khalid Salim, with murder in the deaths of the 12 Americans killed in the bombing in Nairobi, as well as conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction. A second suspect, Odeh, is also brought to New York.

Source: Staff and wire reports