By Mark Hamblett, From New York Law Journal
Convicted al Qaida conspirator Khalid al-Fawwaz asked Southern District Judge Lewis Kaplan if he could turn and address victims of the murderous attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998.
Kaplan, who was about to sentence the al Qaida spokesman to life in prison Friday, said he could.
“I cannot find the words to describe how sorry I am for all the tragic violence that occurred and for all the pain and suffering,” al-Fawwaz said. “I do not support violence. I never intended for any of my activities to contribute to it.”
Al-Fawwaz said he wanted to “reform” the government in his native Saudi Arabia and never endorsed the twin bombings of the embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998 that killed 224 people and injured thousands as part of Osama bin Laden’s terror campaign.
But the judge said those sentiments were not to be believed, despite the spirited efforts of the defense team to portray al-Fawwaz as a man who “abhors violence.”
“I do not credit it as truthful,” Kaplan said, adding, “Obviously, the jury did not share that picture of you.”
A jury convicted al-Fawwaz, 52, in February after a six-week trial and three days of deliberation of al Qaida conspiracies to kill Americans, officers and employees of the United States; destroy U.S. buildings through bombings; and attack U.S. defense premises and utilities (NYLJ, Feb. 27).
Prosecutors Sean Buckley, Stephen Ritchin, Nicholas Lewin and Adam Fee said al-Fawwaz was the ninth-ranked al Qaida member, and they presented evidence that placed al-Fawwaz in Afghanistan in 1991, where he trained al Qaida fighters, and then in East Africa as part of an al Qaida cell in 1993, when surveillance of the embassy targets began.

But his job culminated in Great Britain, where prosecutors said al-Fawwaz was bin Laden’s “man in London,” who distributed the al Qaida’s leader’s 1996 declaration of war and his 1998 fatwa that said it was the duty of every Muslim to kill Americans wherever they can be found.
Buckley told the court that this was the last prosecution of those in custody on the indictment that named bin Laden and cited his declaration of war on the United States and his demand that the West leave the Saudi peninsula.
Buckley noted that in an interview, al-Fawwaz had praised Osama bin Laden as wise and said he believed in his jihad. When authorities raided his offices in London, Buckley reminded the court, they found multiple copies of the bin Laden declaration of war in several languages.
“He did everything al Qaida asked,” Buckley said. “He has had his day in court. In spite of that, your honor, this man stands before you unrepentant.”
Kaplan didn’t need persuasion. He said al-Fawwaz enthusiastically embraced bin Laden’s plan to instill terror in Americans. “You were all in on that program,” the judge said.
Defense lawyers Bobbi Sternheim, David Kirby, Barbara O’Connor and Julian Joslin tried to present al-Fawwaz as being a peaceful reformer who never joined the conspiracies and was considered guilty only by association.
Sternheim said the defense has “several issues” it will pursue in a post-sentence appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Southern District U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that justice was served in the case of al-Fawwaz, who he called “bin Laden’s bridge to the West.”
“Al-Fawwaz conspired with a murderous regime, and the result was a horrific toll of terror and death,” Bharara said. “The price he will pay, appropriately severe as it is, cannot possibly compensate his victims and their families.”
Ellen Karas, a U.S. Commerce Department employee who working at the embassy in Nairobi, was blinded in the bombing. Karas was among the victims and family members of victims who addressed the court, and al-Fawwaz, on Friday.
“I had a career ahead of me,” she said. “It’s gone. Now I have a guide dog.”
Karas told al-Fawwaz: “I worship the same God as you. But he is not an angry God. He is not a vengeful God.”
IMAGES:
Ellen Karas, blinded in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, leaves U.S. District Court Friday following the sentencing of Khalid al-Fawwaz for his role in the attacks. AP/Bebeto Matthews
Khalid al Fawwaz CNN
For more on this story go to: http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/id=1202726591390/Life-Sentence-for-Conspirator-in-1998-Embassy-Bombings#ixzz3ag2vA6cu