Jury Urged to Redress ‘Evil Horror’

A prosecutor charged Tuesday that four followers of Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden, on trial for conspiring to bomb two U.S. embassies in East Africa, participated in an “evil horror” that demands accountability.

In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kenneth Karas labeled the terrorist attacks “unspeakable acts that ended the lives, the hopes and dreams of hundreds of people.”

The huge blasts within minutes of each other in Nairobi, Kenya, and in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam on Aug. 7, 1998, left 224 people dead, including a dozen Americans. More than 4,500 others were injured, many seriously.

The prosecutor told jurors that the bombings “shattered three friendly nations.”

Government lawyers allege the meticulous plot by Bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization, on the eighth anniversary of former President Bush’s sending of troops to Saudi Arabia to combat Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, was part of a worldwide plan to murder Americans.

“The American military presence became the cause of al Qaeda,” Karas said, repeating a key prosecution theme of the three-month trial: that Bin Laden was determined to oust the U.S. presence from Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden also was charged in the case but remains a fugitive. The U.S. government has offered a $5-million reward for the Saudi millionaire’s capture. He is believed to be in Afghanistan under the protection of its Taliban regime.

Two of the defendants--Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian, and Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-’Owhali, 24, of Saudi Arabia--face possible death sentences if convicted. Their lawyers called no witnesses and are expected to start closing arguments later in the week.

Government lawyers charge that Mohamed played a key role in the Dar es Salaam attack, purchasing a vehicle used in the plot and renting the house where the bomb was manufactured. Later, he photographed the explosion.

Al-’Owhali was supposed to die in the attack on the embassy in Nairobi, authorities allege. Prosecutors say he jumped from the truck carrying the bomb and threw flash grenades at the building’s guards so the vehicle could get closer before the bomb was detonated. Government lawyers allege he personally asked Bin Laden for a mission he could carry out.

The two other defendants are Wadih El-Hage, a 40-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, a 35-year-old citizen of Jordan. They are accused of participating in the conspiracy and face life in prison if convicted.

On Tuesday, Karas spent most of his time attacking the credibility of El-Hage, who mounted the most vigorous defense, saying he was a legitimate businessman working with Bin Laden on various enterprises, including farming, trading commodities, selling gemstones and peddling ostriches.

The prosecutor presented a far different picture.

He contended that Bin Laden’s businesses were designed to provide funding and cover for terrorism.

“This wasn’t an attempt to get on the Fortune 500,” Karas said sarcastically.

Karas told jurors that El-Hage lived a secret criminal life and acted as a “facilitator” as part of the conspiracy, with duties including arranging forged passports for terrorists and supervising for a time al Qaeda’s operations in Kenya.

“He served as Osama bin Laden’s personal assistant,” Karas charged.

The prosecutor said that El-Hage visited Bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1997 and brought back a new policy to “militarize” the terrorist cell in Kenya.

Karas said El-Hage later lied before a federal grand jury investigating Bin Laden.

“The evidence overwhelmingly establishes El-Hage chose al Qaeda over America,” Karas said of the grand jury appearances. “. . . He did this so al Qaeda and those he was working with could continue their activities against the United States.”

The prosecutor told the jury that when Bin Laden moved his organization to the Sudan for a time, El-Hage served as his “gatekeeper.”

“To get to Bin Laden, you had to go through El-Hage,” he said.

The prosecutor showed jurors records of calls from El-Hage’s cell phone in Kenya to a satellite phone allegedly used by Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

“That phone gives you a window into how al Qaeda operates,” he said, urging the jury to examine the phone records during their deliberations.

Karas said that when federal agents seized El-Hage’s computer, they found a program designed to make false passports and a letter requesting a bogus passport for a member of al Qaeda. He said the computer contained replicas of travel stamps--”all the tools of the false passport trade.”

Karas said that when al Qaeda’s military commander drowned in a ferry accident in Africa’s Lake Victoria, El-Hage was sent with others to look into the incident.

Some lawyers initially predicted the trial would last nine months to a year, but the case has moved far more rapidly. Unlike some previous terrorism trials, defense and prosecution lawyers agreed on the contents of hundreds of documents, which were introduced as evidence without dispute and dramatically reduced the number of witnesses called.

U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand allowed a minimum of bickering among the lawyers, frequently cutting off testimony he deemed repetitive or irrelevant.

After the defense presents its closing arguments, the jury is expected to begin deliberations next week.