The Washington Post
NEW YORK – Talking of Allah’s will and America’s sins, four disciples of Osama bin Laden were sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for their roles in the bloody plot that blew apart two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.
The men, slight and unassuming in blue prison smocks and white prayer caps, listened impassively as U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand pronounced their life sentences in a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. Outside, police gripping assault shotguns ringed the building.
Thursday was the convicts’ final chance to speak in public. One proudly described himself, through his lawyer, as a “soldier in the military wing of al-Qaida.” Another proclaimed his innocence and his love of America, and condemned the bombings – but he also said that Afghanistan’s Islamic dictatorship was God’s will taken root on earth.
A third thanked the jury for sparing his life. The fourth said nothing. And none of the men expressed remorse.
The four men are the first to be convicted by a U.S. jury of carrying out bin Laden’s 1998 religious fatwa, or decree, to kill Americans wherever possible.
“This is not a time for eloquence but for justice,” said U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand as he pronounced the first of the four life sentences. Terrorism is “the most serious threat … to the society of any civilized nation.”
He 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. The judge has held out hope that the money might come from al-Qaida bank accounts that have been targeted by the U.S. government.
Trucks packed with explosives exploded just minutes apart on the morning of Aug. 7, 1998, flattening embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans. More than 4,600 were injured.
During a five-month trial that ended with the four defendants’ convictions last May, prosecutors exposed a vast plot in which bin Laden and al-Qaida had used satellite telephones and messengers to direct the bombings.
“Al-Qaida stands charged, tried, convicted and sentenced for terrorism,” U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft said after Thursday’s hearing. “The United States will hunt terrorists down and will make them pay the price for their evil acts of terrorism.”
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