A former aide to Osama bin Laden was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for his role leading up to the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.
Khaled al-Fawwaz (52), listed as No 9 on an al-Qaeda membership roster found in Afghanistan after the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks, was the 10th person convicted in the US in connection with the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, according to prosecutors. Among those killed in the 1998 bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were 12 US citizens. While al-Fawwaz didn’t participate in the attack, jurors found that for almost a decade he helped Osama bin Laden’s terror network establish itself and pull off the deadly assault. He was convicted in February of helping carry out four terror schemes. Al-Fawwaz was arrested in the UK after the embassy attacks and brought to New York for trial in 2012. His lawyers argued he’d distanced himself from the al-Qaeda leader while serving as head of a London-based group called the Advice and Reform Committee, which sought reform in Saudi Arabia.
Jurors convicted al-Fawwaz of conspiring to murder US officials and planning to attack national defence facilities. – (Bloomberg)