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Embassy bombings trial informant names alleged conspirators
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Citing by name alleged conspirators, a former terrorist Tuesday described the formation of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden's organization, al-Qaeda, which federal prosecutors say planned acts of violence and terrorism against Americans worldwide. The government informant, Jamal Ahmed Mohamed Al-Fadl, was the first witness in the trial of four men accused of conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa. Al-Fadl said he heard bin Laden express anti-American views when he was associated with his group. "We have to stop the head of the snake," Al-Fadl recalled bin Laden saying in 1993. "The snake is America and we have to stop them. We have to cut their head off and stop what they are doing in the Horn of Africa." Bin Laden's first anti-American fatwah, or religious declaration, came at one of his weekly lectures sometime after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and U.S troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia, home of the two holiest Muslim shrines in Mecca and Medina.
"We cannot let the American army stay in the Gulf area and take our oil and take our money. We have to do something to take them out," Al-Fadl recalled bin Laden as saying. Al-Fadl placed one of the trial defendants, Wadih el Hage, at the al-Qaeda headquarters in Sudan in the early 1990s, and placed himself in the rooms when bin Laden and his associates issued their first declarations of violence against the United States. Al-Fadl said he first met bin Laden between 1988-89, when Al-Fadl, a 37-year-old native of Sudan, went to Afghanistan to join rebels fighting the Soviet Union, which had occupied the Muslim country. Bin Laden is a key figure in this trial because prosecutors allege the four defendants were acting at his behest as part of a decade-long conspiracy to kill Americans and destroy U.S. government property. Bin Laden, also indicted by the U.S. government, is believed to be living in Afghanistan. Al-Fadl testified that he attended meetings in 1989-90 where bin Laden and others founded al-Qaeda. Asked by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about the agenda of the new group, Al-Fadl said, "It's established for focusing on jihad," a declaration of a holy war. Al-Fadl testified in English, at times calling on an Arabic translator for help. In 1991, Al-Fadl said he moved with bin Laden to Sudan, where al-Qaeda established a new headquarters, including a farm used in part for military training. He said he earned $300 a month for his al-Qaeda work and $200 a month working for construction and import-export companies bin Laden established. Al-Fadl, in listing numerous people around the offices, named el Hage, known then by the alias "Abu Abdullah al Lubani," as on the payroll and as someone he had trained to do his job. Bin Laden, at this time, Al-Fadl testified, began to express anti-American views. "He liked to sit in the front yard and talk about jihad," Al-Fadl said. Al-Fadl said the group's fatwahs, issued by bin Laden and others, did condone the killing of innocents, starting with al-Qaeda's reaction to U.S. military presence in Somalia in 1993. The indictment alleges that al-Qaeda's forces were responsible for October 1993 attacks that killed American military personnel in Mogadishu, Somalia. Until now, Al-Fadl, one of the government's primary confidential sources, was known only as "CS-1" in court documents. Sketch artists were forbidden from drawing his face, and U.S. marshals checked their work as they left the heavily guarded courtroom. No cameras are allowed in federal court. Prosecutors on Monday characterized this key witness as someone who approached the U.S. government after a fallout with bin Laden over money. Al-Fadl, described as on the run from bin Laden, has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, including conspiring to attack U.S. national defense facilities, according to court documents.
The trial, presided over by U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand, kicked off with opening statements Monday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Butler said jurors would learn of a "long, complicated and chilling" story of conspiracy and terror involving the four defendants. The August 7, 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured thousands. By the end of the day Al-Fadl cited 10 of the alleged conspirators named in the sweeping federal indictment, most of whom are not on trial at this time. Jeremy Schneider, an attorney for one of the two defendants facing the death penalty, Kahlfan Khamis Mohamed, conceded Monday his client had a role in the Tanzania bombing, but said he was a "pawn." Attorneys for the other death eligible defendant, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, did not make an opening statement. "There's always a strategy to it, but now unfortunately I can't tell you what it is," attorney David Baugh said Tuesday. The other two defendants -- Mohamed Sadeek Odeh and el Hage -- face life sentences. Their attorneys said in their openings that the men had ties to bin Laden, but had no role in violent activity. Al-Fadl, the first witness, told the court he lived in Saudi Arabia before coming to the United States in 1986 on a student visa. He settled in Brooklyn where he worked in a grocery store and became involved with a Brooklyn mosque that raised money and recruited Muslim men to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Court resumes Wednesday at 10 a.m. and Al-Fadl is expected to continue with his testimony. RELATED STORIES: Attorneys lay out embassy bombing cases RELATED SITES: Links to United States Embassies and Consulates Worldwide |
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