Kenya terror attacks trial opens
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The Boeing 757 flew on to Tel Aviv as scheduled after the attack in Mombasa.
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NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Prosecutors at the trial of three Kenyans charged with plotting attacks on Westerners and Israelis opened their case on Wednesday by displaying a missile launcher they said was used in an attack on an Israeli airliner in Kenya.
In the latest hearing of a trial that centers on attacks claimed by al Qaeda, the prosecution displayed a two-meter long blue tube it said was used in the failed 2002 attack.
"It is the same as the one I saw that day," prosecution witness Suleiman Rashid, a Mombasa farmer, told Nairobi chief magistrates court, gesturing at the launcher.
Rashid was one of several witnesses to the attempted attack on the Israeli airliner as it took off from Mombasa airport on November 28, 2002. Prosecutors said they were trying to paint an authoritative picture of the incidents at the center of their case.
The missile attack came within minutes of a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel north of the Indian Ocean coastal city.
Kenyans Kubwa Mohammad Seif, a fisherman, Said Saggar Ahmed, a teacher, and Salmin Mohammed Khamis, a hardware shop clerk, were charged in November with conspiracy in the two Mombasa attacks and in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.
They have also been charged with conspiring in a failed plot to blow up the U.S. mission in Nairobi between November 2002 and June 2003. They deny all charges.
Security officials have told reporters that the evidence of conspiracy to be presented to the court will consist mostly of confessions made by defendants during police questioning.
Rashid said he saw a portable launcher of the same type lying on the ground near the airport after two missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off from the airport.
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda guerrilla network claimed responsibility for the Mombasa attacks. U.S. officials say al Qaeda was also responsible for attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 which killed more than 200 people.
These missile launchers were allegedly used in the attack.
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The Nairobi embassy was rebuilt on a heavily-patrolled and isolated suburban plot. Security officials say the new compound was the target of a plot in June involving an explosives-packed truck and hijacked plane which could have crashed into the embassy building.
The U.S. mission was shut down for several days that month due to what officials said was a serious terrorist threat.
A related trial of four people facing 15 counts of murder for their alleged role in the bombing of the Paradise Hotel is set to begin in the high court on January 26.
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Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
