bin Laden followers get life for bombings

NEW YORK -- Three Osama bin Laden disciples convicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa received life without parole Thursday in a city still reeling from last month's terrorist attacks.

A fourth defendant also faced sentencing Thursday, but planned to make a half-hour statement first at the fortified federal courthouse in lower Manhattan.

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 28, was the first to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He and Mohamed Rashed Al-'Owhali, 24, were sentenced to life without parole for direct involvement in the bombings.

Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, of Jordan, received the same sentence for conspiracy.

Judge Leonard B. Sand ordered each of the men to pay $33 million in restitution: $7 million to the victims' families, and $26 million to the U.S. government.

At a pre-sentencing hearing on Wednesday, Sand said the defendants were indigent. But he also suggested that frozen assets might be used for victims, thanks to recent attempts by the Bush administration to choke off the funding of al-Qaida and other terror groups.

Odeh, who had argued at his trial that the United States had provoked the terrorist attacks, was convicted of a lesser role and had been eligible for a lesser sentence.

Anger about Israel

At sentencing, defense lawyer Ed Wilford said Odeh "was a soldier in the military wing of al-Qaida." He said the attack, in Odeh's view, was an attack against the U.S. for its support of Israel.

Mohamed, convicted of helping build the bomb that struck the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, declined to address the court.

He and Al-'Owhali had faced a possible death penalty in the case, but the jury could not agree on that sentence. Through his attorney, Mohamed said he "wishes to express gratitude to a jury that spared his life."

"The jury has found you guilty of crimes that mandate a life sentence, and I will of course impose a life sentence," the judge told him.

Al-'Owhali, who rode the bomb vehicle up to the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and tossed stun grenades at guards before fleeing, also declined to address the court.

The near-simultaneous Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 231 people, including 12 Americans. They were quickly blamed on bin Laden, who was indicted in the case, and his al-Qaida terrorist organization in Afghanistan.

The four defendants' six-month trial attracted little interest before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed more than 5,000 people.

On Thursday, security was tightened around the courthouse just blocks from the trade center rubble.