Three sentenced to life in U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa

Associated Press WriterNEW YORK (AP) -- Three of four Osama bin Laden disciples convicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa received life without parole Thursday in a city where terrorism is no longer a distant reality.

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 28, was the first of the four defendants 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.

Mohamed, convicted of helping to grind TNT and load the bomb that struck the Tanzanian embassy, declined to address the court.

He 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," Judge Leonard B. Sand told Mohamed.

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

Their 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.

Wadih El-Hage, 41, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen from Arlington, Texas, was found guilty in May of conspiracy and was also to be sentenced Thursday.