US Gov't To Put Terrorism on Trial

Tuesday, January 2nd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Using the law as a scalpel, federal prosecutors hope to turn the trial of four men accused in the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa into an autopsy of a group blamed for plotting to kill Americans worldwide.

The four are among nearly two dozen men accused of engaging in terrorism after pledging loyalty to Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi millionaire who is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List.

Jury selection is set to begin Wednesday.

The prosecution is unique because the crimes were outside the United States, forcing hundreds of investigators to chase leads in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding after allegedly ordering Americans to be killed wherever they are found.

The trial will unfold in the same Manhattan courtroom where the government earlier won convictions of six men in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 10 men in a plot to blow up New York landmarks.

This time, the government prosecutors hope to prove bin Laden and his followers conspired against Americans through terrorist networks in places such as Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Algeria, the Philippines, the Kashmir region of India and the Chechnyan region of Russia.

Before they are finished, prosecutors said they want to turn terrorism inside out, displaying how this extensive network worked since 1989 to spread fear and destruction.

The centerpiece of the case: the Aug. 7, 1998 twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that left 224 people dead, including 12 Americans. Prosecutors plan to call 100 witnesses from six countries, and use confessions and circumstantial evidence including telephone and computer records.

The defendants have all maintained their innocence, challenging the government's right to stage the trial in the United States and to use evidence gathered in foreign lands by methods they say would be illegal under U.S. standards.

The defendants heading to court for the first of several trials to result from the bombings include Wadih El-Hage, a 40-year-old Lebanon-born U.S. citizen who was a former personal secretary to bin Laden. El-Hage, who most recently lived in Arlington, Texas, could face life in prison if convicted.

Two others â€” Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, 23, of Saudi Arabia, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, of Tanzania â€” could be sentenced to death if convicted of the conspiracy charges facing all of the defendants.

Al-'Owhali allegedly admitted to the FBI that on the day of the bombing he rode in the passenger seat of a bomb-laden van to the embassy in Nairobi and tossed a grenade at a guard outside.

Mohamed allegedly rented a house in his native Tanzania that was used as a bomb factory.

The last defendant, Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 35, of Jordan, allegedly told investigators after the bombing that he went to Kenya five days before the bombings and met an explosives expert who led the Kenyan terrorism cell. If convicted, he too could face life in prison.

By the time the case was built into a 161-page indictment more than two dozen countries â€” including the United States â€” had been identified as having played host, unwittingly or not, to tentacles of bin Laden's sprawling organization of tiny but potent terrorist cells.

America was targeted because its way of life clashed with the group's extremist interpretation of Islam and because it supported other governments and institutions including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and the United Nations, prosecutors said.

In all, prosecutors have charged 22 men. Five are awaiting trial in New York, three are awaiting extradition from Britain and 13 remain at large. One man has already pleaded guilty.

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On the Net:

State Department's 1999 Annual ``Patterns of Global Terrorism'' Report: http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/1999index.html

CIA: http://www.odci.gov