Trial Begins for Suspects in Four Kenya Terrorist Cases

Three men suspected in Al Qaeda attacks on a tourist hotel and an Israeli airliner in Kenya went on trial Wednesday, with witnesses describing the attempt to shoot down the jet.

Five farmers who live near the airport in the port city of Mombasa separately said they saw a plane flying over them, trailed by two objects releasing heavy smoke, early on Nov. 28, 2002. The two SA-7 missiles narrowly missed the jet.

Prosecutors displayed a 6-foot blue missile launcher they said was used in the attack.

“It is the same as the one I saw that day,” farmer Suleiman Rashid told the court.

The defendants, charged in November, are Kubwa Mohammed Seif, a fisherman; Said Saggar Ahmed, a teacher; and Salmin Mohammed Khamis, a hardware shop clerk.

The three are charged with conspiracy in four cases: the bombing of the Paradise Hotel north of Mombasa, which killed 15 people, including three Israeli tourists; the nearly simultaneous attempt to shoot down the airliner; an alleged plot to destroy the new U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in June; and the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, which killed 219 people, including 12 Americans.

The men have pleaded not guilty.

At least one of the suspects, Khamis, reportedly admitted taking part in the plot to destroy the new embassy shortly after he was arrested in June.

A local administrator in Lamu, on Kenya’s coast, linked Seif to an alleged militant on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.

He said Mohammed, using the name Abdul Karim, stayed in the area for four months and later married Seif’s daughter.

The administrator, Haddadi Ali Nuri, said he had not seen the man since February.

Mohammed is the alleged mastermind of the 2002 attacks and has been indicted by a U.S. court for his role in the 1998 bombing of the embassy.

Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the 2002 attacks as well as the 1998 embassy bombing in Nairobi and a near-simultaneous one at the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Prosecutor Edwin Okello said he would call about 40 witnesses at the trial, which is scheduled to continue today before adjourning for an undetermined period.

A related trial of four people facing 15 counts of murder for their alleged roles in the bombing of the Paradise Hotel is set to begin in the high court Jan. 26.