Survivors of 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings Can Testify in Trial, Judge Rules
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Version 0 of 1. In terrorism trials in Manhattan in recent years, perhaps no testimony has been as riveting as that offered by the survivors of the 1998 bombings by Al Qaeda of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands. Witnesses have testified about the force of the blasts as well as the grisly aftermath of blood, bodies and destruction. “Suddenly, the windows blew into the room,” Justina Mdobilu, a Tanzanian who worked in the embassy in Dar es Salaam, testified in 2010, adding, “I had cuts and bruises over my body.” But in an unusual move, lawyers for the latest defendant to be tried in the embassy bombings conspiracy asked a judge this week to bar prosecutors from calling Ms. Mdobilu and three other witnesses that the government said it wanted to have testify early next week. The judge in the case, Lewis A. Kaplan, heard arguments on the motion on Friday, and ultimately ruled against the defense. But the motion raised an interesting issue nonetheless. Defense lawyers had argued that the victims’ testimony would unfairly prejudice the case of their client, Khaled al-Fawwaz, who is charged with conspiracy but not accused of having a direct role in planning or carrying out the bombings. Such testimony would only add “dramatics” and “emotions,” one defense lawyer, Bobbi C. Sternheim, said on Friday in Federal District Court. Prosecutors vigorously opposed the request. The office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, argued that the victims’ testimony was crucial to help prove that at the time, the attacks were the culmination of a conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to kill Americans, and that Mr. Fawwaz was part of that conspiracy. Mr. Fawwaz, among other things, was a propagandist for Bin Laden who helped publicize his 1998 fatwa, which said that Muslims should kill Americans anywhere in the world, prosecutors have told the jury. “American symbols containing American civilians and military members were attacked violently, unexpectedly and in a manner designed to terrorize those who survived and, indeed, all Americans,” the prosecutors wrote to the judge. Judge Kaplan, after hearing arguments on Friday, rejected the defense’s request. He said the four witnesses could testify, but that their focus should be kept to their own experiences — how they escaped from the destruction and what they observed — and not those of others. Such testimony was relevant and not unfairly prejudicial, the judge said. Another person expected to be called is George Mimba, a Kenyan who testified in 2010 about how he climbed a fence to escape after the Nairobi bombing and saw “bodies all over the place,” including those of schoolchildren from a bus that had been hit. Judge Kaplan said the testimony might take one day in a trial that was expected to last up to six weeks. He noted that there was no dispute over the fact that 224 people had been killed and thousands more wounded. If the jury did not know from those figures “that some pretty ugly stuff happened, they’re not a New York jury,” he said, adding, “They know it.” |