Kenyan and Tanzanian Embassy Bombers Trial: 2001

Defendants: Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, Wadih El-Hage, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Mohamed Saddiq Odeh
Crimes Charged: al-'Owhali, Mohamed, Odeh: Conspiracy and murder; El-Hage: Conspiracy and perjury
Chief Defense Lawyers: al-'Owhali: David P. Baugh, Frederick H. Cohn; Odeh: Anthony L. Ricco, Edward D. Wilford; El-Hage: Joshua L. Dratel, Sam A. Schmidt; Mohamed: David A. Ruhnke, Jeremy Schneider
Chief Prosecutors: Paul Butler, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Michael J. Garcia, Kenneth M. Karas
Judge: Leonard B. Sand
Place: New York, New York
Dates of Trial: February 5-May 29, 2001
Verdicts: All guilty of all charges
Sentences: al-'Owhali, El-Hage, Mohamed, Odeh: life imprisonment

SIGNIFICANCE: The trial in Federal District Court in New York of men accused of terrorist bombings in East Africa proves that a carefully and well-developed prosecution, with protection of the rights of the accused and with conclusive evidence, can produce justice even in the most appalling crimes.

In Nairobi, Kenya, on Friday morning, August 7, 1998, Prudence Bushnell, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, was attending a meeting with Kenya's trade minister on the top floor of a bank building next door to the American embassy. Suddenly a huge explosion destroyed the seven-story building and ripped off the back of the embassy. It killed 213 people, including 12 Americans, and injured more than 4,000 others.

At almost the same moment, in the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, U.S. charge d'affaires John Lange was holding a staff meeting in his third-floor office when a bomb blasted walls and windows. It killed 11 Tanzanians and injured 85 people, including Americans. Both bombings occurred on the eighth anniversary of the arrival of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf War.