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There were more than 4500 people injured in the embassy attacks in addition to the 213 who were killed

From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York Bureau

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Government prosecutors rested their case advocating capital punishment for convicted Kenya embassy bomber Mohamed al-'Owhali on Thursday, after rapidly proceeding through a string of witnesses who recounted their personal losses in the attack.

Twenty-seven people -- including relatives of people who died in the bombings and those who suffered serious injuries -- described the physical and emotional toll the terrorist act inflicted on them.

"Our lives have been turned upside-down," said U.S. State Department lawyer Howard Kavaler, who was stationed with his wife, Prabhi, at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. His wife died in the August 7, 1998, truck bomb explosion, leaving him as sole parent of the couple's two daughters.

CASE FILE Shattered Diplomacy: The U.S. Embassy Bombings Trial An in-depth special report on the trial of four men charged with the embassy bombings Trial reports | Timeline | Key Figures  MESSAGE BOARD Embassy bombing verdict    DOCUMENTS Read al-'Owhali death penalty phase testimony, May 30-31 (FindLaw) (PDF)  CNN ACCESS Bomb victim's father: 'We got 'em, Kenny Ray'     GALLERY Images from the U.S. embassy bombing in Tanzania

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"I try to be a mother and a father but it's a Herculean task," Kavaler said. His girls, Tara, 12, and Maya, 8, sat in the second row of a court gallery crowded with victim's families from across the United States and, especially, Kenya.

Mordecai Onono, whose wife, Lucy Grace, worked at the embassy, described arriving at the bomb scene. "I saw a window where [her] office used to be. ...There was not a chance she was living unless she was not working that morning."

He found his wife's body in a morgue two days later, their 23rd wedding anniversary. He said he took her wedding ring off her finger and carries it with him everywhere. The couple had five children.

"I felt angry because this was a very peaceful person. She should not have died violently," Onono said.

Teresia Rungu's daughter Ruth, 20, was attending her first day of secretarial college in the Uffundi House, a seven-story building next door to the embassy that the bomb reduced to rubble. Ruth and her father, Peter, 44, who accompanied his daughter to pay her tuition, were among more than 100 Kenyans killed in or around the collapsed building.

"I just don't sleep. I just ask why this happened to me," Rungu said.

The last prosecution witness, Clara Aliganga, talked about her son Nathan, a 21-year-old U.S. Marine stationed at the embassy. Nathan was off duty and cashing a check inside the embassy when the bombing occurred. Aliganga said it took rescuers 27 hours to find Nathan's body because he was under so much debris.

"I wish I could hold my son in my arms and he could lay his head on my shoulders," she said. As a boy, Nathan had expressed a desire to go to Africa because he had a great love of animals. "I'm gonna go to Africa, mom. I'm gonna go on safari," his mother recalled him saying. "He never got to do that."

Nathan Aliganga was killed in the bombing of the embassy in Kenya

At least three jurors could be seen wiping away tears during her testimony.

Nathan Aliganga and Prabhi Kavaler were two of the 12 Americans killed, among 213 total fatalities, in the Kenya bombing. Al-'Owhali was convicted of killing all of them.

Over the course of two days, a pair of doctors also testified about the volume of injuries they treated. More than 4,500 people were hurt in the attack. Four people who were partially or completely blinded by flying glass took the stand, including a 15-year-old boy who said his head spins when he tries to read schoolwork out of his barely functioning left eye.

Dr. Surendra Patel told the court that he treated so many lacerations at Nairobi's M.P. Shah hospital that he lost count and the hospital ran out of sutures. His hospital is the same one at which al-'Owhali sought and received treatment, registering under an alias, for cuts and bruises he sustained running away from the exploding bomb truck that he helped maneuver behind the embassy.

Al-'Owhali's attorneys will begin presenting their case when court resumes on Monday.