14 February 2001
Source: Digital file from Southern District Reporters Office; (212) 805-0300.
This is the transcript of Day 1 of the trial.
See other transcripts: http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-dt.htm
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1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
2 ------------------------------x
3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
4 v. S(7) 98 Cr. 1023
5 USAMA BIN LADEN, et al.,
6 Defendants.
7 ------------------------------x
8
New York, N.Y.
9 February 5, 2001
9:10 a.m.
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12 Before:
13 HON. LEONARD B. SAND,
14 District Judge
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1 APPEARANCES
2 MARY JO WHITE
United States Attorney for the
3 Southern District of New York
BY: PATRICK FITZGERALD
4 KENNETH KARAS
PAUL BUTLER
5 Assistant United States Attorneys
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ANTHONY L. RICCO
7 EDWARD D. WILFORD
CARL J. HERMAN
8 SANDRA A. BABCOCK
Attorneys for defendant Mohamed Sadeek Odeh
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FREDRICK H. COHN
10 DAVID P. BAUGH
LAURA GASIOROWSKI
11 Attorneys for defendant Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali
12 JEREMY SCHNEIDER
DAVID STERN
13 DAVID RUHNKE
Attorneys for defendant Khalfan Khamis Mohamed
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15 SAM A. SCHMIDT
JOSHUA DRATEL
16 KRISTIAN K. LARSEN
Attorneys for defendant Wadih El Hage
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1 (Pages 3 through 6 sealed)
2 (In open court)
3 THE COURT: I just want to alert you to one thing
4 which Joel Blum called to my attention. If there should ever
5 be an occasion, which I hope would be rare, that the courtroom
6 is cleared for purposes of some proceeding, we must bear in
7 mind that room 7, the overflow room, must also be cleared,
8 because otherwise we will have cleared the courtroom but not
9 the overflow rooms.
10 We will await the jurors, all of whom are here, so
11 the two alternate alternates will be excused.
12 (Recess)
13 THE COURT: You may bring in the jury.
14 (Time noted, 9:45 a.m.)
15 THE COURT: This is indeed a historic occasion, as we
16 are starting 15 minutes before the appointed hour.
17 (Jury present)
18 THE CLERK: United States of America versus Mohamed
19 Sadeek Odeh, Mohamed Rashed Al-'Owhali, Khalfan Khamis
20 Mohamed, and Wadih El Hage. Attorneys for the government
21 ready?
22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, your Honor, good morning.
23 THE CLERK: Attorneys for defendant Odeh ready?
24 MR. RICCO: Yes, we are, your Honor.
25 THE CLERK: For defendant Al-'Owhali?
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1 MR. COHN: Yes, the defendants are ready. Your
2 Honor, there are headphone problems. The interpreters --
3 THE CLERK: Defendant Khalfan Khamis Mohamed ready?
4 MR. RUHNKE: Yes, your Honor.
5 THE COURT: For defendant El Hage ready?
6 MR. SCHMIDT: We are ready, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Mr. Czakany, I am told that there are
8 some problems with the headphones. Could you alert Mr. Blum
9 and see whether there is something that can be done about
10 that -- there he is.
11 Mr. Kenneally, will you swear the jury, please.
12 (The jury of 12 and 6 alternates was duly sworn.)
13 THE COURT: You recall, ladies and gentlemen, that I
14 did explain the arrangements with the interpreters and the
15 connections, and we had hoped that everything had been in
16 order, but there appears to be some lag.
17 (Pause)
18 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen -- and finally,
19 after weeks of careful screening and interviewing, I can greet
20 you in this fashion, as ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
21 First, on behalf of all the participants in this proceeding, I
22 want to thank you for your willingness to serve on the jury in
23 this lengthy trial. We recognize that for many of you the
24 call to lay aside the normal affairs of your life and to
25 devote yourself to this trial entails sacrifices on your part,
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1 on the part of your families, on the part of your employers.
2 We appreciate your willingness to discharge this high civic
3 duty.
4 As you know, great pains were taken in your
5 selection. Over 1,300 people chosen at random completed
6 questionnaires containing some 96 questions to enable us to
7 learn something about you, including everything from your
8 reading habits to your views on profound philosophical
9 questions. In addition, we interviewed you individually.
10 Then, from a pool of 80 panelists, you 18 were selected by
11 counsel for the parties.
12 I want to particularly thank the jury commissioner,
13 Robert Rogers, for the smooth way in which the logistics were
14 handle, and to Jack Radovich for his invaluable assistance in
15 dealing with this fairly significant logistical problem.
16 Service on a jury requires patience, attentiveness,
17 and discipline. For example, I cautioned you each time we met
18 to make strenuous efforts to avoid reading, watching,
19 listening to, or discussing anything that may appear in the
20 media or that may be talked about in your presence relating to
21 this case or in any way connected to this case. For example,
22 although Usama Bin Laden is named as a defendant in the
23 indictment before you, he is not a party to this case. He is
24 not subject to the jurisdiction of this court. But I ask that
25 you refrain from reading or listening to or watching anything
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1 that may appear in the media concerning Bin Laden or this
2 case. If you see a reference to terror trial or embassy
3 bombing case, please switch the TV dial or turn the page.
4 If anyone should seek to engage you in any discussion
5 of the case, simply walk away. If the person persists, please
6 advise me or the United States Marshals.
7 I may remind you of this caution from time to time,
8 but even if I fail to do so on a daily basis, please always
9 bear it in mind.
10 Another matter of discipline is that I ask that you
11 not discuss the merits of this case even amongst yourselves
12 until some months from now when all the evidence is in and you
13 have heard the court's instruction and you begin your
14 deliberations. Occasionally jurors ask why I impose this
15 restriction. They say we are going to spend so much time
16 together and this case is obviously what we have most in
17 common. We know you don't want us to discuss this with others
18 because you don't want outside influences on us, but why can't
19 we talk among ourselves about the merits of the case? We ask
20 that you not discuss the merits of the case with each other
21 until you have heard all the evidence and the court's
22 instructions on the law because experience tells us that once
23 somebody openly expresses a view favoring one side or the
24 other, there becomes an identification with that view and a
25 reluctance to change an opinion once expressed. So please
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1 avoid discussing the merits of the case until you begin your
2 deliberations.
3 Finally as to discipline, a trial is somewhat like a
4 play. It cannot begin until all the performers are present.
5 For us that means all the jurors, all the lawyers,
6 interpreters, witnesses, court reporter, and myself. So
7 please make every possible effort to be on time, because we
8 cannot begin until you are all here. We will make every
9 effort to begin promptly.
10 I have another instruction to you which is facetious
11 but I mean it. Please, all stay healthy. Take good care of
12 yourselves.
13 As I told you before during jury selection, I will
14 meet every morning with the lawyers before court and every
15 afternoon after you leave, to have the trial proceed as
16 expeditiously as possible and not waste your time. When
17 delays occur -- despite all our efforts there may be some
18 unavoidable delays -- we will try to give you as much advance
19 notice as possible. For example, last week I told you that we
20 will not be sitting this Thursday, and of course we are not
21 sitting on Friday, and Monday is a holiday. So that you have
22 a five-day break from jury service, and I hope that you can
23 use that opportunity to make arrangements for things that will
24 be difficult to deal with while you are on jury duty.
25 As to logistics, we will sit Monday through Thursday
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1 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30, unless you are otherwise advised. It
2 may be that it would be convenient to start earlier than 10:00
3 a.m., judging by today's experience. We will see how that
4 works. But for now we will sit from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30. We
5 will take a mid-morning break, a midafternoon break, and break
6 for lunch, which you will order each morning, which will be
7 served to you in the jury room. Have you ordered lunch? You
8 have ordered lunch, good. If at any time any juror wishes the
9 court to declare a recess, please just raise your hand and say
10 may we have a recess. No questions asked, we will be glad to
11 accommodate you. If at any time you want to stand and
12 stretch, because I know a lot of us have back problems, please
13 feel free to do that.
14 Let me now ask that the participants in this case be
15 reintroduced, because I know for some of you it has been a
16 while. The first row seated in front of me, are the
17 government attorneys and their staff, and the row seated
18 behind them and to the right are defense counsel and the
19 defendants, and I would ask that they now reidentify
20 themselves.
21 MR. KARAS: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Ken
22 Karas.
23 MR. FITZGERALD: Good morning. Pat Fitzgerald.
24 MR. BUTLER: Good morning. Paul Butler.
25 MS. GRANT: Good morning. Lillie Grant, paralegal
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1 specialist.
2 MS. MAEYAMA: Good morning, Naomi Maeyama, paralegal
3 specialist.
4 MR. FRANCISCO: Good morning, Gerard Francisco,
5 paralegal specialist.
6 MR. RICCO: Good morning, everyone. My name is
7 Anthony Ricco, and, as I told you before, I represent this man
8 seated here. His name is Mohamed Odeh. Also representing Mr.
9 Odeh is Carl Herman and Ed Wilford. For some of the jurors I
10 told you about an attorney who wasn't here before. Now she is
11 here. Her name is Sandra Babcock. She will not be here
12 throughout the trial. You will see her from time to time
13 during the trial. Thank you very much.
14 MR. COHN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My
15 name is Fred Cohn and I represent Mohamed Al-'Owhali, seated
16 two seats to my left. Next to me is Laura Gasiorowski, my
17 associate counsel. My cocounsel David Baugh is over there.
18 In the audience, and you will see her from time to time, is
19 Katie Tempone -- please stand up, Katie -- a paralegal in my
20 office.
21 MR. RUHNKE: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is David
22 Ruhnke. I am one of three attorneys representing Khalfan
23 Khamis Mohamed, who will also be referred to as K.K. Mohamed.
24 My cocounsel will introduce themselves at this time.
25 MR. STERN: My name is David Stern. I am one of
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1 Mr. Mohamed's attorneys.
2 MR. SCHNEIDER: Good morning. I am Jeremy Schneider.
3 I will also be representing Mr. Mohamed.
4 MR. SCHMIDT: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My
5 name is Sam Schmidt. I represent Wadih El Hage, seated to my
6 right. Also representing Mr. Hage is Joshua Dratel. He is on
7 my left. My associate Kristian Larsen is here. You will see
8 him seated here at times, as well as Marshall Mintz, another
9 attorney, and you will also see Elizabeth Besobrasow, who is
10 seated back there, at times seated at counsel table. Thank
11 you very much.
12 THE COURT: Let me briefly tell you of the sequence
13 of events that will take place in the trial and discuss your
14 role and my role in these proceedings.
15 A federal criminal proceeding of this sort begins
16 with the filing of an indictment, and the four defendants on
17 trial who have just been introduced to you have been named in
18 various counts of an indictment. The indictment in this case
19 contains 308 counts, or charges. You will during your
20 deliberations and perhaps earlier have a copy of the
21 indictment, so don't feel you have to memorize the particular
22 counts. I am just going to briefly summarize them for you.
23 Counts 1, 2 and 3 of the indictment name all four
24 defendants. Count 1 alleges a conspiracy to kill United
25 States nationals. Count 2 alleges a conspiracy to murder,
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1 kidnap and maim United States nationals at places outside the
2 United States. Count 3 alleges conspiracy to murder. Count 4
3 names the defendants Odeh, Al-'Owhali and K.K. Mohamed, that
4 is, all the defendants except El Hage, and that alleges a
5 conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against the
6 United States nationals. Counts 5 and 6 name all four
7 defendants. Count 5 alleges a conspiracy to destroy United
8 States buildings and property. And Count 6 alleges a
9 conspiracy to attack national defense utilities. Counts 7
10 through 286 relate to the bombings in Africa, they relate to
11 the bombings, the alleged murders, and I am not going to
12 summarize them now. Counts 287 to 308 relate solely to the
13 defendant El Hage. Counts 287 to 305 allege perjury before
14 federal grand juries, and Counts 306, 307 and 308 allege false
15 statements made to the FBI.
16 An indictment is not evidence, it is merely a charge.
17 It is the means by which the defendants are brought before a
18 jury such as yourselves. The defendants are presumed to be
19 innocent and there is at present no evidence before you as to
20 their guilt. The presumption of innocence remains with them
21 until such time, if ever, as you the jury unanimously find
22 that the government has proven guilt beyond a reasonable
23 doubt. Guilt is individual, and you will be asked to consider
24 separately the guilt of each defendant on each charge.
25 The first thing that happens in a criminal case is
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1 that the government makes an opening statement. Because it
2 has the burden of proof, that is, the burden of proving guilt
3 to your unanimous satisfaction, beyond a reasonable doubt, the
4 government goes first. An opening is the opportunity to put
5 before you what it is that the party making the opening
6 statement believes that the evidence will show. Evidence does
7 not always come in in an orderly chronological fashion, and an
8 opening statement provides an opportunity to present an
9 overall view of what the party anticipates the evidence will
10 show.
11 After the government completes its opening statement
12 defense counsel may, if they wish, make an opening statement.
13 I say may if they wish because there is no burden on the part
14 of any defendant to introduce any evidence or make any
15 statement.
16 After all the openings are completed, the government
17 will call its witnesses, and when all the government witnesses
18 have testified, the government will rest. The defendants may
19 then, if they wish, call defense witnesses. When all the
20 defense witnesses have testified, the government may, if it
21 wishes, call rebuttal witnesses, that is, witnesses whose
22 testimony is offered to rebut evidence offered by defense
23 witnesses.
24 After all the evidence has been heard, counsel are
25 given the opportunity to make closing arguments, that is, to
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1 argue to you why, on the basis of the evidence you have
2 already heard, you should find in favor of their respective
3 clients.
4 The possibility of punishment that a defendant may
5 receive if found guilty is not a consideration in determining
6 whether or not a defendant has been proven by the government
7 to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
8 Let me now talk about my role at the trial and yours.
9 My role, of course, is to preside at the trial, to rule on the
10 legal matters which may arise from time to time during the
11 course of the trial, for example, the admissibility of
12 evidence. We shall try to keep any argument as to such
13 matters to a minimum, but occasions may arise when counsel ask
14 for a sidebar. That is the opportunity to take up a legal
15 matter with me outside of your hearing. Please do not be
16 offended if this should occur. These legal issues are not
17 your concern and you should show no resentment towards an
18 attorney who requests such a sidebar. But, as I have said, we
19 will meet in the morning and in the afternoon to try and keep
20 such interruptions to a minimum.
21 It is also my responsibility at the end of the trial
22 and after closing statements to instruct you on the law to be
23 applied by you to the facts as you find them. You are the
24 sole determiners of the facts. You decide which witnesses you
25 believe and which witnesses you do not believe. The finding
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1 of facts is your prime function. Issues of law are the sole
2 prerogative of the court, and you are bound by your oath as
3 jurors to apply to the facts as you find them the law as
4 contained in the court's instructions. It would violate your
5 oath as jurors to substitute for the law as contained in the
6 court's instructions any view you may have as to what the law
7 is or ought to be, other than as set forth in the court's
8 instructions.
9 My role is also to function as a timekeeper and to
10 hold counsel to the reasonable periods of time they have
11 requested. As I have said, your role is to find the facts,
12 and your finding of the facts must be based entirely on the
13 evidence introduced in this court. Evidence is a very
14 specific, limited concept. Not everything that you see or
15 hear in this courtroom is evidence. A very good example of
16 that is what you are listening to now. What I say is not
17 evidence. What the attorneys say in their opening or closing
18 statements is not evidence. If there is a fact assumed in a
19 question -- for example, were you standing on a street corner
20 on January 3 when it was raining, and the answer is no, then
21 there is no evidence that it was raining on January 3, unless
22 that appears from other testimony, because the question isn't
23 evidence.
24 Let me put it affirmatively. Let me tell you what is
25 evidence. Evidence consists of the testimony, the answers
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1 given by the witnesses to the questions posed to them.
2 Obviously, to evaluate the answer you have to consider it in
3 connection with the question to which it is a response. But
4 it is the answer which is the evidence, not the question.
5 Documents received in evidence, marked and received
6 in evidence, are evidence, not merely papers waved around the
7 courtroom or shown to a witness to refresh the witness's
8 recollection. Documents received in evidence are evidence.
9 Stipulations are agreements between the parties that
10 a certain fact is true or that if a certain witness were
11 called, that witness's testimony would be as stated in the
12 stipulation, and that is before you too as evidence. Nothing
13 else is evidence unless I specifically tell you that a
14 particular matter may be treated by you as evidence.
15 If you find it would be useful to you, you may take
16 notes during the trial, and you will be furnished with writing
17 material. That is an option entirely in your discretion. If
18 you do take notes, be sure that your taking of notes does not
19 interfere with your listening to and considering all the
20 evidence and particularly observing the demeanor of the
21 witness.
22 Also if you take notes, do not discuss your notes
23 with anyone before or during your deliberations. Your notes
24 are to be used solely to assist you and are not to substitute
25 for your recollection of the evidence in the case. The fact
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1 that a particular juror takes notes entitles that juror's
2 views to no greater weight than those of any other juror and
3 your notes are not to be shown to any other juror during the
4 course of your deliberations. If during your deliberations
5 you have any doubt as to any testimony, you will be permitted
6 to request that the official trial transcript which is being
7 made of these proceedings be read to you. Your notes are to
8 be left in the jury room, which will be locked, and are not to
9 be taken home with you. But, as I said, if you wish to take
10 notes you are free to do so.
11 Finally, if at any time in your wanderings around the
12 city you happen to come across anyone you now see at counsel
13 table and they don't greet you and exchange pleasantries,
14 please don't think they are being rude. They are simply
15 adhering to the instructions that this court gives in all
16 cases, not just this case.
17 Ladies and gentlemen, that completes my preliminary
18 remarks and the next order of business then is the opening
19 statement on behalf of the government.
20 MR. BUTLER: May it please the court, ladies and
21 gentlemen of the jury. It's August 7, 1998. It's a Friday,
22 about 10:30 in the morning. It is downtown Nairobi, the
23 capital of Kenya, a country located in eastern Africa. It's
24 business as usual at the American Embassy, which means busy.
25 You see, the embassy is an interesting place. It serves as a
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1 gateway to America overseas. It represents America in foreign
2 countries like Kenya, and it serves the needs of the local
3 community. So there are many different people inside an
4 embassy. There are high public officials, like Julian
5 Bartley, the consul general, who rose from a working class
6 neighborhood in Queens to become the man responsible for
7 looking after Americans in Kenya. There are interns like his
8 son Jay, who worked at the embassy to learn a little bit about
9 his father's occupation. There are ordinary working people,
10 like Michelle O'Connor, a secretary at the embassy, who was
11 the mother to three young daughters. And there are Kenyans
12 who work at the embassy, called foreign service nationals,
13 like Tobias Otieno, who worked in the commercial department
14 writing economic reports about the Kenyan economy.
15 Still other people come to the embassy for services,
16 like Kenyans who come to get a visa to travel to this country.
17 Or like Father John Kiogo, a Catholic priest in Kenya, who
18 went to the embassy that day to visit his brother who worked
19 there, and his niece, who was getting ready to travel to the
20 United States to be a student. Father Kiogo and his brother
21 and his niece sat down in the embassy that day doing a final
22 count of her money and making sure that her paperwork was in
23 order for her big trip.
24 The area outside the embassy is just as busy. Next
25 to the embassy is a secretarial college where young people are
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Opening - Mr. Butler
1 preparing for their future. Inside that building there are
2 some small offices where there are businesses, like the
3 scrapmetal business of a Kenyan like Yoganda.
4 Across from the embassy parking lot there is a taller
5 office building where people go about their everyday business.
6 As a matter of fact, the American ambassador, Miss Prudence
7 Bushnell, is there for a meeting. The streets outside the
8 embassy are also busy as the morning rush hour is still in
9 full force. Cars, trucks and buses are lined up in traffic,
10 including a bus bringing children to school.
11 Then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed. A
12 truck entered the rear parking lot of the American Embassy.
13 In the back of that truck was a massive bomb which exploded
14 with devastating force. The American Embassy and a tall
15 office building were shattered. The secretarial college
16 collapsed and was completely destroyed.
17 That's only what the bomb did to concrete and metal
18 buildings. What it did to human beings that day defies
19 description. Words and numbers just cannot capture the
20 horror. When it was over, 213 men, women and children had
21 lost their lives. Among them were Julian Bartley, the consul
22 general, his only son, Jay, Michelle O'Connor, the mother to
23 those three young daughters, and the brother and the niece of
24 Father John Kiogo. Thousands more were injured, many blinded
25 by flying glass from blown out windows, like Tobias Otieno,
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1 the foreign service national, who lost most of his sight in
2 one eye, or Sammy Yoganda, the scrapmetal worker, who sat
3 under the rubble of the secretarial college for three full
4 days.
5 Why did these bombings happen? Who could be
6 responsible for such horrible acts of violence?
7 Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence will show that
8 these two bombings were a major strike in an ongoing terrorist
9 plot carried out by a violent worldwide group. Four members
10 of this overarching plot to kill Americans are the four
11 defendants on trial before you today.
12 First is Mohamed Al-'Owhali. Mohamed Al-'Owhali left
13 the headquarters of that terrorist group in Afghanistan on a
14 mission to kill Americans. He left on a mission to kill and
15 to die. You see, Mohamed Al-'Owhali was actually in the truck
16 that brought the bomb to Kenya that day. He went there on a
17 mission to kill and to kill himself. But, ladies and
18 gentlemen, the evidence will show that at the last minute
19 Mohamed Al-'Owhali ran away from that bomb truck, leaving 213
20 innocent men, women and children slaughtered behind him.
21 I told you about the bombing in Kenya and the
22 horrible acts that occurred there, but, ladies and gentlemen,
23 you will learn that on that Friday morning at 10:30, the
24 carnage had not stopped. The horror repeated itself minutes,
25 perhaps even seconds later, in another country in East Africa
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Opening - Mr. Butler
1 called Tanzania. Another truck pulled into the parking lot of
2 the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of
3 Tanzania. Another bomb was in the back of that truck and
4 exploded with devastating force. Eleven more innocent people
5 were killed and dozens more were injured.
6 The second defendant before you is Khalfan Mohamed.
7 Khalfan Mohamed was in a bomb truck that day too, the bomb
8 truck in Tanzania. Khalfan Mohamed went toward the embassy
9 that day intending to kill, but he did not intend to die. You
10 see, Khalfan Mohamed got out of the truck well before it
11 reached the embassy. But make no mistake about it, ladies and
12 gentlemen, Khalfan Mohamed knew that the driver of that truck
13 was about to deliver his lethal payload to the embassy, a
14 truck bomb that would kill 11 people. How do we know this?
15 Because the evidence will show that Khalfan Mohamed actually
16 helped grind the TNT that was used to make that bomb and
17 loaded that TNT onto the back of the truck.
18 Perhaps the only thing nearly as frightening as the
19 carnage that was wrought by Al-'Owhali and Khalfan Mohamed
20 that day is to learn how many people were involved in this
21 terrorist plot to kill Americans, and to learn that these
22 bombings were neither the beginning nor the end of that plot.
23 Who is this group? Who is it that sent Mohamed
24 Al-'Owhali on his deadly mission from Afghanistan?
25 At this trial you will learn that a man named Usama
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Opening - Mr. Butler
1 Bin Laden formed this terrorist group known as Al Qaeda, which
2 plotted for years to kill Americans. Bin Laden's group is
3 spread throughout the world. Two members of that group from
4 East Africa are the other two defendants before you here
5 today: Mohamed Odeh and Wadih El Hage.
6 Wadih El Hage was a key member of Bin Laden's group
7 in East Africa. Wadih El Hage is a naturalized US citizen
8 from Lebanon. In the 1980's, he lived in the United States
9 and in Pakistan, where he first met Usama Bin Laden. In the
10 early 1990's, El Hage moved to the Sudan while Bin Laden was
11 located there.
12 You will hear about some of the things that El Hage
13 did on behalf of Bin Laden and his businesses in the Sudan.
14 By 1994, El Hage became a trusted associate of Bin Laden, and
15 he was sent to Nairobi, Kenya, on behalf of the group. He
16 joined up with Bin Laden's military commander, a man known as
17 Abu Ubaidah. You will hear about some of the secret things
18 that Wadih El Hage, Abu Ubaidah and others did for Bin Laden
19 while in Nairobi, Kenya. You will hear that they established
20 businesses and that they passed messages back and forth to the
21 group. You will hear about one message in particular that
22 Wadih El Hage brought back in 1997. It was a message to the
23 secret group in Africa known as a cell, that it should prepare
24 itself for military work. This is the same East Africa cell
25 that would blow up the embassies a year later.
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Opening - Mr. Butler
1 I want to say one thing. When I use the term
2 military work, I am using the group's term, not mine. Killing
3 innocent men, women and children in acts of terror is not
4 military work. It is the group that liked to justify their
5 actions by calling it military.
6 The last defendant before you is Mohamed Odeh.
7 Mohamed Odeh was another key member of the Bin Laden's group
8 in East Africa. Odeh joined Bin Laden's group in the early
9 1990's, and he was trained in camps in Afghanistan in the
10 tools of terrorism. He was trained in assassinations and
11 explosives. He was even trained as to how much explosives
12 were needed to blow up will specific types of buildings.
13 After his training, Mohamed Odeh was sent to Somalia,
14 a country located just northeast of Kenya.
15 Some of you may recall that back in 1993 the United
16 States and the United Nations sent military troops to Somalia.
17 Bin Laden and his group violently objected to this, so Bin
18 Laden sent members of the group down to Somalia to help train
19 the Somalis how to fight. One of those trainers was Mohamed
20 Odeh.
21 After he was done in Somalia, Odeh was sent to Kenya
22 by the group, where he settled on the coast of Kenya in an
23 area called Mombasa. He was given a boat by the group to set
24 up a fishing business, and the proceeds of that business were
25 to be used to support members of the cell living on the coast
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1 of Kenya. But Odeh would meet up with this explosives trainer
2 from Afghanistan again. It would be August 1998, the week of
3 the bombing. Odeh would travel from his home on the coast of
4 Kenya and come to Nairobi. He would stay the week before the
5 bombing in the very hotel in Nairobi where the masterminds of
6 this bomb plot stayed, including the bomb builders themselves.
7 You will learn that Odeh would leave Kenya on August
8 6, 1998, the night before the bombing, using a false passport.
9 And where was he going? Straight back to Afghanistan to meet
10 with Usama Bin Laden.
11 Ladies and gentlemen, as you know from earlier this
12 morning, I am Assistant United States Attorney Paul Butler.
13 With me are Assistant United States Attorneys Ken Karas and
14 Pat Fitzgerald. Together, it is our privilege to present this
15 case to you on behalf of the United States government. As you
16 know from this morning also, with us at counsel table are
17 paralegals Lillie Grant, Naomi Maeyama, and Gerard Francisco,
18 who together with many others will be helping us throughout
19 this trial.
20 I would like to take some time to outline for you the
21 crimes that the government will prove were committed by these
22 defendants, and to describe briefly for you how the government
23 intends to prove these crimes. But as Judge Sand told you,
24 what I am about to tell you is not evidence. The witnesses
25 will tell you what the evidence is. The opening statement is
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1 not a time for me to try to imprint on your memory every
2 important fact. Rather it is just a time for the government
3 to offer you a preview or an outline of what the government
4 believes the evidence will show at this trial. It is like
5 giving someone directions for a trip they haven't taken
6 before, to try to provide them with landmarks or orient them
7 with certain terms on the road, so that when they actually
8 take the trip the directions will become more familiar. So
9 please, don't be overwhelmed by the number of unfamiliar
10 names, dates, foreign places you are going to hear about. It
11 is our job throughout the trial to make that clear to you, and
12 by the end of the trial, what may seem unfamiliar to you now
13 will be very familiar to you by then.
14 In order to understand what led to these bombings on
15 August 7, 1998, we have to learn a little bit more about this
16 terrorist group formed by Usama Bin Laden. As I told you, the
17 name of that group is Al Qaeda, which is an Arabic term, and
18 it means the base. Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda back in the
19 1980's in Afghanistan.
20 Some of you may recall, at that time the Afghan
21 people, who were mostly Muslims, were at war with the former
22 Soviet Union. Many, including the United States, thought that
23 the cause of the Afghan people was a just cause, and Muslims
24 from throughout the world came to fight on behalf of the
25 Afghans. One of those persons was Usama Bin Laden, the son of
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1 an extremely wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman.
2 Eventually, the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from
3 Afghanistan, and Bin Laden saw this as an opportunity. He saw
4 this as an opportunity to use these well-trained fighters to
5 overthrow governments that he did not like, that is,
6 governments that did not share his extremist beliefs. So he
7 founded Al Qaeda, the base, as a base of military operations.
8 It was a base not only for the members of his own group but
9 for a network of other groups and people who shared his
10 extremist philosophy.
11 In the early 1990's, Bin Laden moved the headquarters
12 of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan to the Sudan in Africa. He
13 worked closely with the Sudanese government in establishing
14 various businesses, and you will hear how the defendant Wadih
15 El Hage assisted Bin Laden and did various things for him in
16 his businesses while in the Sudan.
17 It was around this time in 1991 when the United
18 States became involved in the Persian Gulf war against Iraq.
19 As I am sure many of you will recall, the United States sent
20 troops to the country of Saudi Arabia during that war. Bin
21 Laden and his group finally objected to this as well. You
22 see, Saudi Arabia contains two sites that are very important
23 to the religion of Islam, known as the two holy mosques. So
24 Bin Laden and his group objected to US troops being in Saudi
25 Arabia for that reason. They began issuing statements amongst
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1 themselves in the Sudan, calling the Americans infidels and
2 calling for them to be driven from the land of the two holy
3 mosques. But, ladies and gentlemen, it was not just words.
4 You will hear that Bin Laden and his group began taking
5 actions to prepare to do battle with his enemies, particularly
6 the United States.
7 As I mentioned before, in 1993 the United States and
8 the United Nations became involved in Operation Restore Hope,
9 a peacekeeping mission to restore order in war-torn Somalia.
10 Again, Bin Laden and his followers did not see it that way.
11 They saw this as a chance by America to gain a foothold in
12 Africa, in order to invade Muslim countries. So the group
13 began issuing more statements amongst themselves, saying that
14 the Americans in Somalia ought to be killed and calling for
15 the Americans to be driven from Somalia and from Saudi Arabia.
16 But once again, it wasn't just words. You will hear that Bin
17 Laden and his group took actions. Bin Laden sent members of
18 his group down to Somalia to train fighters how to fight. And
19 one of those trainers was the defendant Mohamed Odeh.
20 You see, Bin Laden knew that he could not fight an
21 open, all-out war against the United States in Somalia the way
22 he had done so against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. So he
23 sent people to train the Somalis how to fight. That way he
24 could preserve the members of his own group.
25 It was during this effort in Somalia that Bin Laden
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1 established his network of operations in Nairobi, Kenya. You
2 see, the plan was to have Bin Laden's fighters and members of
3 his group travel to Kenya and slip across the border to
4 Somalia. So he had to set up a base of operations. He sent
5 various people there to establish fake businesses, cover
6 businesses that would help fighters infiltrate through to
7 Somalia.
8 Even after the events in Somalia were over, Kenya
9 remained an important base of operations for the group. You
10 will learn about what various members of the group did in
11 Nairobi, Kenya, during this time. For example, you will learn
12 that Bin Laden's military commander, the man known as Abu
13 Ubaidah, settled in Nairobi, Kenya. You will learn that in
14 1994 the defendant Wadih El Hage joined Abu Ubaidah in Kenya.
15 You will learn that after his time in Somalia, Mohamed Odeh
16 returned from Somalia and settled on the coast of Kenya where
17 he began that fishing business, all the while remaining a
18 member of Al Qaeda. Wadih El Hage worked in the city of
19 Nairobi. On the outside, he was an American businessman in
20 Kenya. On the inside, he was doing secret work on behalf of
21 Usama Bin Laden.
22 In 1996, Bin Laden moved the headquarters of Al Qaeda
23 back from the Sudan to Afghanistan. And it was at this time
24 that Bin Laden became bolder and more brazen about his desire
25 to kill Americans. Previously, the group had just issued
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1 statements amongst themselves, but in the summer of 1996 Usama
2 Bin Laden issued a public open declaration of war on the
3 American military.
4 Again, it was not just talk. You will hear the
5 things that Bin Laden's loyal followers did in order to carry
6 through on this public declaration. For example, you will
7 hear about several trips that the defendant Wadih El Hage took
8 in 1997 to meet with the leadership of Al Qaeda.
9 You will hear about the one trip where he came back
10 with that important message that the east African cell should
11 prepare itself for military work. You will also hear that
12 upon his return from another of these trips, El Hage's house
13 in Kenya was searched and several important items were
14 recovered, including a computer, about which you will hear
15 more during this trial.
16 After that search, El Hage and his family decided to
17 return to the United States, and it was at this point that
18 America turned to one of its own citizens, Wadih El Hage, for
19 help in protecting itself from Bin Laden's network. You see,
20 in light of Bin Laden's open declaration of war on the
21 American military, the United States government began an
22 investigation of Bin Laden, began investigating his
23 solicitation of murder and his calls to attack Americans
24 overseas.
25 So Wadih El Hage was called to testify before a grand
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1 jury in this very courthouse. It was September 1997, one year
2 before the bombings. You will learn that Wadih El Hage came
3 into this courthouse and lied repeatedly. He lied about his
4 relationship with Usama Bin Laden. He lied and basically told
5 the grand jury that Bin Laden had no people in Kenya. He even
6 lied about Bin Laden's military commander Abu Ubaidah, who,
7 you will learn, had drowned in a ferry accident in Africa the
8 year before.
9 You see, El Hage didn't want the grand jury to know
10 the importance of the people that Bin Laden had in Africa. So
11 he said that the person who drowned was merely a Dutch
12 businessman and not Bin Laden's military commander.
13 One year later, the people that El Hage lied to
14 protect blew up the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In
15 addition to being charged with a conspiracy to kill Americans,
16 Wadih El Hage is charged with seven counts of perjury for his
17 testimony before the grand jury that day.
18 While El Hage was hiding what he knew from the
19 American government, others were preparing to carry through on
20 Bin Laden's public declaration of war. It was around this
21 time that the defendant Mohamed Al-'Owhali, who was originally
22 from Saudi Arabia, was being trained in Bin Laden's camps in
23 Afghanistan. He was being trained in the tools of terrorism,
24 including assassinations, surveillance, and explosives. He
25 fought in a battle. He distinguished himself so well that he
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1 actually had the opportunity to have a meeting with Usama Bin
2 Laden. And it was at that meeting that he asked Bin Laden for
3 a mission.
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1 And that mission turned out to be the bombing of the
2 American embassy in Kenya. It was also roughly at this time
3 that the defendant Khalfan Mohamed who had also been trained
4 in camps in Afghanistan went to Somalia with some members of
5 the very plot he would conspire with to build up the American
6 embassy in Tanzania.
7 Now, I should note one thing. Neither Mohamed
8 Al-'Owhali nor Khalfan Mohamed were formal members of Bin
9 Laden's group al Qaeda, but as I told you before, the al Qaeda
10 group was just a base of operations for a network of people
11 and groups that shared this extremist beliefs. One does not
12 have to be a formal member of al Qaeda to carry out important
13 tasks for the group. Al-'Owhali and Khalfan Mohamed are
14 excellent examples of that. Al Qaeda turned to them to
15 actually execute the bombings.
16 Now, another group that Bin Laden joined up with is
17 the group known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad and it's radically
18 opposed to the present government in Egypt. I should tell you
19 that the term jihad is another Arabic term that you'll be
20 hearing about, and it can mean many things. But to al Qaeda
21 and Egyptian Islamic jihad it meant one thing and one thing
22 only, a holy war against governments that did not share its
23 extremist beliefs, particularly the United States of America.
24 Now, in early 1998 Bin Laden issued his most chilling
25 public statement yet. Previously his call to murder had been
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1 limited to members of the American military, but in early 1998
2 Bin Laden called on his devoted followers to kill Americans,
3 civilian or military, anywhere in the world they could be
4 found. This statement was joined by Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
5 And you will learn once again, ladies and gentlemen, that
6 these were not just words.
7 You will learn how from early 1998 until August 7,
8 1998, the defendants, al-'Owhali, Khalfan Mohamed and Odeh
9 along with Wadih El Hage's former roommate and close
10 associate, a man named Harun, did various tasks to fulfill Bin
11 Laden's command. For example, Mohamed Al-'Owhali received
12 further training in the camps in Afghanistan for his mission.
13 He traveled from Afghanistan to Kenya in the days before the
14 bombing using a false passport from the government of Yemen.
15 He joined up with various members of the plot, including
16 Harun. He also met up with his former comrade from
17 Afghanistan a Saudi man named Azzam.
18 Al-'Owhali traveled in the bomb truck that day to
19 Nairobi, Kenya, and Azzam was the driver. The plan was for
20 al-'Owhali to get out of the bomb truck and to throw home made
21 grenades at unarmed security guards to scare them away so that
22 Azzam could drive the truck closer to the embassy in order to
23 inflict maximum damage and to kill the most Americans. And
24 you will hear that Azzam blew himself up in that truck, and
25 that al-'Owhali ran away at the last minute leaving those 213
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1 men, women and children slaughtered behind him.
2 You will also hear how the defendant Khalfan Mohamed
3 worked to further the plot in Tanzania. You will hear how he
4 rented a house where the bomb was built, and how he lived in
5 that house with another key member of the group. You will
6 learn how he bought a car that was later used to ferry bomb
7 materials back and forth to that house. And you will learn
8 how he worked with others to actually grind the TNT that was
9 used to make that bomb and then load that TNT on to the back
10 of the bomb truck.
11 You will also hear that Khalfan Mohamed stayed behind
12 after the bombings. He stayed behind to help the driver, the
13 suicide driver of that Tanzania truck, and to clean out the
14 house after the bombings were over to help the group avoid
15 detection.
16 Now, you will also hear how Mohamed Odeh received an
17 emergency order on the coast of Kenya that all members of al
18 Qaeda had to leave Africa by August 6, 1998. You will hear
19 that on August 3 he traveled overnight by bus leaving his home
20 and family on the coast. You will hear that Mohamed Odeh
21 spent August 4th, August 5th and August 6th in a hotel in
22 Nairobi with several key members of al Qaeda, including the
23 masterminds of these bombings and the bomb builders
24 themselves.
25 You will hear that Mohamed Odeh left Kenya on August
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1 6, 1998 with another member of the plot using a false passport
2 and having shaved his beard to change his appearance.
3 Now, ladies and gentlemen, that's an outline of what
4 the government expects the evidence will show. I should talk
5 for a minute with you about the burden of proof. As Judge
6 Sand mentioned to you, in this case, as in all criminal cases,
7 the government has the burden to prove each of these
8 defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we welcome
9 that burden. The government commits to you that by the end of
10 this trial you will find that each of these defendants were
11 guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of entering into an illegal
12 agreement to work with Usama Bin Laden and others to kill
13 Americans anywhere in the world they can be found.
14 Now you may ask yourself: How is the government to
15 prove this? For example, how is the government going to prove
16 to you what I just told you about al Qaeda? Well, ladies and
17 gentlemen, when the evidence begins you will have the
18 extraordinary opportunity to hear from a witness who is a
19 sworn member of the al Qaeda group itself and who had actual
20 conversations was Usama Bin Laden. He will tell you what al
21 Qaeda is, how it was formed, and how it worked. He will tell
22 you what he did for the group and what others did for the
23 group.
24 He will also tell you that he left the group two
25 years before the bombings, so he's going to merely set the
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1 stage for those bombings. He's going to tell you about the
2 organization that was responsible for those bombings. He's
3 not going to be the only witness by any means.
4 You're going to hear from many, many more witnesses
5 like law enforcement witnesses who responded to the scene of
6 the bombings or who participated in the investigation of the
7 overarching conspiracy to kill Americans. You will hear from
8 eye witnesses to certain events in Africa, and you will hear
9 from the victims of these horrible crimes.
10 But the witness I just told you about is a good
11 example of how you should view certain types of witnesses.
12 Listen to what he says, listen to what he says about himself
13 and listen to what he says about others. He will also tell
14 you that he stole money from Usama Bin Laden and that he got
15 caught and that he went on the run, and that in an attempt to
16 save himself and his family, he approached the American
17 government and offered to provide information. You will learn
18 that he pled guilty to a crime in connection with his
19 activities for Usama Bin Laden and that he will testify before
20 you pursuant to a cooperation agreement.
21 Now, I'm not going to argue the credibility of that
22 witness or any other witness right now. To do so would be
23 pointless, because you haven't heard their testimony yet. But
24 I ask you to scrutinize all the witnesses carefully and
25 particularly the ones who are members of the group. Listen to
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1 what they have to say about themselves. Listen to what they
2 have to say about others. Listen to how they answer questions
3 when they're put to them by the government and listen to how
4 they answer questions when they're asked by the defense.
5 Look to see if their testimony is corroborated in any
6 way. Now, corroboration can take many different forms.
7 Sometimes the witness will get up and testify to certain
8 things, and you'll see that a document or documents recovered
9 in a search show that what that witness told you was true.
10 Sometimes a witness can be corroborated by the testimony of
11 another witness or witnesses. For example, you will be
12 hearing from various witnesses who were within or around al
13 Qaeda who will testify to different aspects of the same event
14 or events.
15 By the end of the trial you'll know more than they
16 will, because you will have heard from all of them, which is
17 to say that watching a trial is a lot like watching a jigsaw
18 puzzle being solved, different pieces come in at different
19 times and things may seem blurry, but at the end the picture
20 will become clear.
21 Now, you're also going to hear evidence in this case
22 in the form of confessions by some of the defendants. For
23 example, you will learn that the defendant Mohamed Al-'Owhali
24 confessed to his role in the plot to blow up the embassy in
25 Kenya. Ladies and gentlemen, Mohamed Al-'Owahli did not just
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1 confess, he bragged and he boasted. He admitted that he
2 excelled in his training in Afghanistan. He boasted about how
3 he requested a meeting with Usama Bin Laden, and then
4 requested from Usama Bin Laden that he be given a mission. He
5 admitted that he traveled from Afghanistan to Nairobi in the
6 days before the bombing using a false passport from the
7 government of Yemen. He admitted that he met up with certain
8 key players of the plot in Nairobi, including Harun, and he
9 bragged about how he road in the bomb truck that day to the
10 embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
11 You will also hear that the defendant Khalfan Mohamed
12 confessed. He confessed to his role in the bomb plot in
13 Tanzania. Khalfan Mohamed admitted that he, too, was trained
14 in camps in Afghanistan and that he went to Somalia. He
15 admitted that he helped carry out the plot in Tanzania by
16 renting a house where the bomb was built, and by helping
17 others to grind the TNT that was used to make that bomb. He
18 admitted that he helped load the TNT on the back of the bomb
19 truck and that he stayed behind to help the driver of that
20 truck after everyone else had left Africa. And he admitted
21 that he stayed behind to try to clean out the bomb factory to
22 help the group avoid detection.
23 You will also hear that Mohamed Odeh confessed.
24 Mohamed Odeh confessed that he was a member of al Qaeda from
25 the early 1990s until August 7, 1998. He also admitted that
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1 he was trained in camps in Afghanistan and that he trained
2 others in Somalia. He admitted that he operated a fishing
3 business on behalf of al Qaeda on the coast of Kenya and that
4 the proceeds of that business were used to help support
5 members of the cell that existed on the coast of Kenya.
6 He admitted that he traveled from the coast to
7 Nairobi on August 3, 1998 and that he spent three days before
8 the bombing in a hotel in Nairobi with various members of the
9 al Qaeda. Among these were the masterminds of the bombing,
10 including the bomb builders themselves. Odeh admitted that he
11 left Kenya the night before the bombings on August 6, 1998
12 using a false passport and having shaved his beard to change
13 his appearance.
14 Now, you will also hear that Mohamed Odeh claimed
15 that he did not know these bombings were coming, but, ladies
16 and gentlemen, the evidence will show that Mohamed Odeh is
17 guilty of these bombings.
18 Now, as Judge Sand mentioned to you, at the end of
19 the trial the lawyers will have an opportunity to get up in
20 summations and make various arguments to you. They will be
21 able to argue to you about what pieces of the puzzle they
22 think fit in and which did not. Listen to those arguments,
23 but make up your own mind. Use your common sense. That's why
24 you were selected as jurors, to use the common sense that
25 you've attained in your everyday life experience and come here
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1 and apply it to the facts and the evidence.
2 I'd like to say a few words to you about the charges
3 in the indictment. As Judge Sand told you there are 308
4 counts or charges in the indictment, and I'm not going to go
5 through each one of them because that would just take too
6 long. Suffice it to say that most of the counts are murder
7 counts for the 224 people who were killed in Africa on that
8 August 7, 1998. There are also various conspiracy counts to
9 attack American property abroad. But I'd like to spend a
10 couple of minutes talking to you about Count One, the
11 conspiracy to kill Americans.
12 All four of these defendants are charged in Count One
13 with this conspiracy. And what this count basically alleges
14 is that each of these defendants entered into an illegal
15 agreement to work with Usama Bin Laden and others to kill
16 Americans anywhere in the world they could be found. Each one
17 agreed to this and each one helped the best way they could.
18 For example, Wadih El Hage helped carry out the
19 agreement by working in secret to maintain the cell in
20 Nairobi. He worked to maintain contact with Usama Bin Laden
21 and pass messages among the cell, including that important
22 message in 1997 that the East Africa cell should prepare
23 itself for military work. He lied to the grand jury in
24 September, 1997 to protect the cell so that it could go on
25 with its deadly work.
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1 Mohamed Odeh carried out his part of the agreement by
2 training fighters in Somalia and by operating that fishing
3 business on the coast of Kenya and by getting out of Africa
4 the night before the bombing.
5 Of course Mohamed Al-'Owhali actually killed
6 Americans. He drove in the truck that day to the American
7 embassy in Nairobi. He threw those stun grenades at the
8 unarmed guards, and he was responsible for that explosion.
9 Khalfan Mohamed also helped carry out his part of the
10 bargain by assisting the plot in Tanzania by renting the
11 house, by purchasing the car, by helping to grind the TNT, by
12 loading the TNT onto the truck and by staying on afterwards to
13 help clean out that house to avoid detection.
14 I'd just like to spend a couple of brief moments
15 talking to you about what's not charged in the indictment.
16 While Wadih El Hage is charged in the conspiracy to
17 kill Americans, he's not charged with the murder count. As I
18 told you before, Wadih El Hage left Africa in 1997 a year
19 before the bombings. The same year he lied to the grand jury
20 to help the East African cell continue its deadly work. But
21 his lies didn't stop there, ladies and gentlemen.
22 You will learn that one month after the bombing in
23 September, 1998, Wadih El Hage returned to a grand jury in
24 this courthouse and he lied again. He lied once again to the
25 grand jury investigating those bombings. He lied about his
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1 relationship with Usama Bin Laden. He lied about Bin Laden's
2 presence in Africa and he even lied about whether he knew his
3 codefendant Mohamed Odeh.
4 I'd like you also to bear in mind that the defendant
5 Khalfan Mohamed is only charged with the 11 murders in
6 Tanzania and not the 213 murders in Kenya. Now, it may seem a
7 little strange to you to hear me say that somebody is only
8 charged with 11 murders, but that ought to bring home two
9 points to you. First, the scope of the mass murder involved
10 in this case, and, second, the important fact that each one of
11 these defendants is on trial before you separately.
12 Now, as I mentioned before, you are also going to be
13 hearing some proof about events that took place in Somalia.
14 But the indictment does not charge, and the proof will not
15 show that any one of these defendants or any other member of
16 al Qaeda actually shot a gun, killed an American soldier or
17 shot down a helicopter in Somalia. Rather, the proof about
18 Somalia is offered to show you how al Qaeda developed, what
19 its motivations were, and particularly, how the network of
20 operations developed in Nairobi, Kenya.
21 Let me make one final point about the charges in the
22 case. The story that's about to unfold before you is long,
23 complicated and chilling. The indictment is long and it
24 contains many counts and violations of many different
25 statutes, but at the core the charges are simple. They are
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1 that all four of these defendants entered into an illegal
2 agreement to work with Usama Bin Laden and others to kill
3 Americans anywhere in the world they could be found.
4 I'd like to just talk to you very briefly about the
5 process that you're about to go through. At the outset I'd
6 like to make one thing crystal clear. While these defendants
7 chose to hate and kill people based on their nationality and
8 their religious beliefs, the government asks you to render a
9 verdict based on the law, the evidence and the facts.
10 You will be hearing some testimony about how Usama
11 Bin Laden and various members of al Qaeda interpreted the
12 religion of Islam. That proof is offered to you to understand
13 what al Qaeda's motivations were, why it did certain things.
14 No comment about how the rest of the Muslims in this world
15 practice their faith. Nobody is on trial here for their
16 religion.
17 Secondly, as I said to you before, you're going to
18 hear a lot of unfamiliar names, a lot of dates, facts, things
19 that happened in foreign countries. Don't be overly concerned
20 about that now. As I told you, it's our job to make that all
21 clear to you, and at the end of the trial the attorneys will
22 have the chance to get up in summations and tell you about
23 what they think is important. Be assured the important things
24 you will remember.
25 Now, in closing, let me say this. The government
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1 commits to you that if you work hard at paying attention, if
2 you're patient with yourself when you hear a lot of dates and
3 names, and if you keep an open mind and you apply your common
4 sense to the evidence, that the government has proved at the
5 end of this trial that each of these defendants, Mohamed Odeh,
6 Mohamed Al-'Owhali, Khalfan Mohamed, and Wadih El Hage, are
7 guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of entering into an illegal
8 agreement with Usama Bin Laden to kill Americans anywhere in
9 the world they could be found. They each helped the best way
10 they could, and in the end 224 men, women and children from
11 Kenya, from Tanzania and from America lost their lives and
12 Kenya, Tanzania and America would never be the same. For that
13 this trial seeks justice. Thank you.
14 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Butler. Do you wish to
15 proceed or do you want to take a recess?
16 MR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, I would ask for a brief
17 recess.
18 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take a brief
19 recess.
20 (Recess)
21 (Continued on next page)
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1 (In open court; jury not present )
2 THE COURT: The juror who wants to take his wife to
3 the hospital on February 14th is trying to make arrangements
4 and on Friday evening if he is able to do that, he thinks that
5 he would be available around 9:30. On that day we may start a
6 little late, but we should be able to sit that day. Let's
7 bring in the jurors, please.
8 Exhibit D on January 1 which was the blank
9 questionnaire was sealed and is unsealed now, so blank copies
10 of the jury questionnaire are available if anyone wants them.
11 The completed questionnaires we'll keep sealed at least for
12 the present because they contain material which might disclose
13 the identity of the juror.
14 (Continued on next page)
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1 (Jury present)
2 THE COURT: Mr. Schmidt.
3 MR. SCHMIDT: Good morning. May it please the Court,
4 Mr. El Hage, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen of the
5 jury.
6 I am somewhat humbled to be here as a representative
7 of Wadih El Hage, a forty-year old nationalized American
8 citizen, father of seven American children. We view this case
9 as of great importance to our country, to our system of
10 justice and of course to Wadih El Hage and his family. The
11 loss of lives and the destruction at the embassy, the great
12 tragedy shared by us all is shared by Mr. El Hage and his
13 family as well.
14 This is a rare opportunity that we have to show the
15 world that a crime of this magnitude will not interfere with
16 our great system of justice; that we will show the world how
17 our system really works; how it protects each individual,
18 citizens or not citizens, from the power of the government.
19 They are the ones who have brought this case against Mr. El
20 Hage.
21 This case is perhaps of historical importance, the
22 incredible scope of the charges of a conspiracy that the
23 government alleges that lasted ten years throughout the world,
24 the resources that the government has put into this case and
25 the nature of the charges themselves. And I understand the
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1 difficulty that one must think that how can ultimately 12
2 normal Americans like you make such a historic decision. That
3 is the beauty of our system that it is you, not the
4 government, that will make the ultimate decisions in this
5 case.
6 Now, this case has often been called the embassy
7 bombings, a shorthand term, because the government alleges
8 this conspiracy ended up with the bombing of two embassies.
9 Of course that was a great tragedy, but this case is more than
10 that, because if it was just the embassy bombings I would not
11 be here talking to you this morning, because Mr. El Hage, and
12 the government has conceded, was not involved in either of the
13 embassy bombings. There is no evidence, as you will see, that
14 he was involved in the embassy bombings.
15 But what the evidence will show is that Wadih El Hage
16 is a devout caring person, a mediator, not a confrontational
17 trouble maker, and that he would never, has never agreed to
18 participate in any criminal conspiracy to kill Americans; has
19 never, would never agree to participate in any criminal
20 conspiracy to kill women and children. Regardless where and
21 when the government says that these acts occurred, whether in
22 Kenya, the Sudan, in the United States, there will be no
23 evidence, no credible, no reliable evidence to show that he
24 agreed to participate in what they call this terror
25 conspiracy.
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1 The government claims that Usama Bin Laden and some
2 associates are involved in this worldwide long-standing
3 conspiracy against the United States. I am not here to
4 represent Mr. Bin Laden. I am here to represent Wadih El
5 Hage. I'm not here to convince you that Mr. Bin Laden is not
6 a danger to America, Americans, Westerners or anybody else.
7 I am here to represent one man, a man that you'll be
8 looking at across from you for many, many months, but I am
9 your reminder that even though the charges relate to not just
10 criminal conduct against America, but encompasses worldwide
11 politics, worldwide religious beliefs, that worldwide politics
12 and worldwide religious beliefs are not on trial. For me and
13 I ask for you as well, one person on trial, a man, a husband,
14 a father of seven children, a citizen of the United States,
15 that is the man on trial that I ask you to consider.
16 The government has said that the beginnings of this
17 terror organization were in Afghanistan and has given you a
18 few pieces of what they call the jigsaw puzzle, and has told
19 you by the end of the case that all the pieces will fit in. I
20 submit to you that the evidence will not show all the pieces
21 of the puzzle that the government claims, but will show you a
22 few pieces and the evidence the government will ask you to put
23 number of pieces together against the other pieces.
24 There will be no credible reliable evidence that
25 Wadih El Hage ever participated in any of the violent acts
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1 alleged in the indictment the government says it will prove.
2 We know that he did not participate in the embassy bombings
3 and there is no evidence that he did. The evidence will also
4 fail to show you that he participated in any violent act that
5 relates against the United States of America our citizens or
6 embassies. Oh, yes there may be guesses, there may be
7 assumptions. There may be evidence that the government says,
8 well, he was there, he had to know something. And the
9 evidence may show that you'll have people getting up here and
10 saying, well, I was told by so and so, who told me that so and
11 so did something else. I ask you to listen carefully to the
12 evidence and note what's not there.
13 The evidence will show that Wadih El Hage was hired
14 by Bin Laden to work in the Sudan, not only because he was
15 well-educated, a hard worker, honest, responsible and a devout
16 Muslim, but, yes, he was an American free to travel throughout
17 the world on American passport. And that's exactly that
18 reason and the reason of what kind of person Wadih El Hage is
19 and was that he would not enter any conspiracy, or offer to
20 enter any conspiracy to do harm to Americans, his wife born
21 and raised in the United States, and his children, Americans.
22 And our country, in our system of justice, you do not
23 punish people solely because of their association. Many
24 countries throughout the world do so. Many of the people who
25 fought in Afghanistan came from countries who punished people
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1 for their associations. Wadih El Hage chose America exactly
2 for the reason that people do not punish people for their
3 associations and their beliefs.
4 Yes, the evidence will show that Wadih El Hage
5 traveled to many places on behalf of Usama Bin Laden's
6 businesses. Yes, the evidence will show that Wadih El Hage
7 maintained contact with many of his friends and associates
8 from both Afghanistan and the Sudan after he left the Sudan
9 and moved to Nairobi. But you will see that the evidence will
10 show that those contacts were for business purposes and to
11 assist other Muslims in countries such as Somalia, Northern
12 Kenya, other areas of East Africa, to help them. There will
13 be no evidence that he ever agreed to participate or to assist
14 any group of people who were going to attack Americans.
15 Now, that does not mean that Mr. El Hage and others
16 that he knew is without opinions as to what was happening to
17 Muslims in the former Soviet Union, what were happening to
18 Muslims in other countries that were war torn like Somalia,
19 and countries that Muslims were not allowed to practice
20 religion, but his beliefs that are shared, and you'll learn
21 Muslims around the world who donate millions of dollars to
22 help other Muslims around the world. In fact, many Americans,
23 Muslims and nonMuslims, donate money around the world to
24 assist the hungry and the poor in Muslim countries around the
25 world.
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1 While the government's case seems to start with
2 Mr. Bin Laden's anger at Americans mainly in Saudi Arabia
3 after the Gulf War, you will learn that that is not an
4 extremist position, it is not a radical position. Many
5 Muslims around the world believe that no armed nonMuslim, no
6 nonMuslim should be in Saudi Arabia because that is a land of
7 the holy places.
8 So when a Muslim gets up and says: America should
9 not be there, he is not announcing he's a terrorist. He's
10 announcing he's a concerned Muslim. Wadih El Hage is aware of
11 that as well as Muslims around the world.
12 To base their case on Usama Bin Laden's -- who is a
13 Saudi Arabian -- dislike of America being in Saudi Arabia is
14 to say all Muslims, many Muslims agree with Usama Bin Laden's
15 method. That's where we think the evidence will not show that
16 Wadih El Hage agreed with Usama Bin Laden's methods.
17 The evidence will not show that he agreed to
18 participate in the conspiracy to kill Americans, to kill women
19 and children.
20 To understand why he would not do that, it is
21 important for you to learn about Wadih El Hage. Some people
22 who left their homes and went to fight in Afghanistan became
23 soldiers, warriors and remain so. Others left to help, went
24 back to their normal life. Wadih El Hage is that type of
25 person.
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1 You will learn that he was born on July 25, 1960, to
2 Lebanese Christian parents. He suffered a disability at birth
3 that left his right arm whithered and weak. At a young age he
4 and his family moved to Kuwait where Mr. El Hage's father
5 worked for the oil companies in Kuwait. And Mr. El Hage was
6 raised in Kuwait among Muslims as well as his Christian family
7 and friends.
8 Eventually, he turned towards Islam, but because of
9 who Mr. El Hage is, he didn't tell his parents because in
10 Lebanon there is a big gap between Christians and Muslims, and
11 he did not want to hurt his parents.
12 After he graduated from high school in Kuwait, he
13 came to the United States, University of Southwest Louisiana
14 in Lafayette, Louisiana in August of 1978, barely an 18 year
15 old. There he was able to mingle with Muslim students and
16 outwardly practice his religion, but he was an unusual
17 Lebanese. He was a person who understood both the Christians
18 and the Muslims in Lebanon, and that fit perfectly into who he
19 was. He was a mediator, conciliator, a quiet, pious person.
20 He worked hard at school towards a degree, but world
21 events interrupted his work and gave him an opportunity both
22 to help his new religion and to help his new country. Russia
23 invaded Afghanistan.
24 Of course the Americans back in 1980, I believe it
25 was during the cold war, opposed Russian Communist aggression
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1 and they supported the insurgents, the Afghanis who were
2 fighting the Russians, they supported them with money to
3 Pakistan, moral support and allowing Muslims to come into the
4 United States to raise money from other US Muslims and even to
5 get people to come and help.
6 (Continued on next page)
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1 MR. SCHMIDT: (Continuing) Wadih El Hage answered
2 that call. He answered that call not as a fighter, not as a
3 confrontationalist. He answered that call as a relief worker,
4 to help the millions of Afghani refugees who were suffering at
5 the hands of the communist aggression. Wadih El Hage was not
6 solely on the Afghani side. He was on the American side,
7 helping against Russian aggression.
8 As one of the few nonAfghans and nonPakistanis there
9 who spoke Arabic and English, he naturally ended up staying
10 with a group of Muslims who spoke Arabic, because among the
11 Afghanis and Pakistanis, few spoke Arabic. That is where he
12 got to know some of the players that the government says
13 ultimately became part of Bin Laden's group. Some of them
14 were not even there yet when Mr. Hage came to Afghanistan in
15 1983. Some were there, and he became friends, he became
16 associates with them. He knew them. They respected him for
17 being a 23-year-old coming to Afghanistan to help, a person
18 with a disability and still willing to help his brother
19 Muslims. His reputation as a hard-working, honest, caring
20 person continued.
21 After about a year and a half he came back to the
22 United States to continue his schooling. He was introduced to
23 and married an American-raised woman, April. April Brightsky
24 Ray. They married. She was also a born Christian converting
25 to Muslim in the United States. They went, he went back to
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1 Pakistan, she for the first time, and they continued relief
2 efforts for another year, this time in a different city in
3 Pakistan. He wasn't a fighter, he was a relief worker. When
4 their first child was born in Pakistan, they registered him at
5 the American Embassy. It was important for their child to be
6 an American.
7 They returned to the United States. They lived in
8 Tucson. He worked for the city of Tucson as a custodian and
9 as a driver. He made one more trip back to Pakistan, this
10 time with his three children and his wife and his
11 mother-in-law and her husband, where she worked as a nurse in
12 Pakistan, and Mr. El Hage continued working there but this
13 time as a journalist. They soon returned and this time set up
14 residence in Arlington, Texas. But even though he had a
15 bachelor's degree in urban planning, it was difficult for him
16 to find a good job commensurate with his education and
17 experience and his intelligence. He ended up brokering cars
18 to the Middle East and making some money to support himself.
19 But he wanted more. He wanted more for him and he wanted more
20 for his family.
21 Again, world events took over. Usama Bin Laden, who
22 was in Afghanistan and was known throughout the world for his
23 years in Afghanistan as an important part in assisting the
24 Afghani freedom fighters, the Mujahadeen, with money and
25 leadership, was thrown out of Saudi Arabia, his home, where
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1 his family were probably the richest nonroyalty in Saudi
2 Arabia. And he moved to Sudan to start businesses, to become
3 what it appeared to be that his father became in Saudi Arabia.
4 His father came from Yemen, moved to Saudi Arabia, and built
5 up his businesses. Sudan was like Saudi Arabia was 50 years
6 ago, and this was an opportunity for Usama Bin Laden.
7 You will hear that Usama Bin Laden, like mostly
8 everybody else in Afghanistan, did not express any
9 anti-American words or rhetoric when he was in Afghanistan and
10 Pakistan. So there was no reason to believe, for Mr. El Hage
11 to believe that going to work for Mr. Bin Laden in the Sudan
12 had anything to do with any worldwide terrorist conspiracy,
13 anything that was anti-American at all. But it was a big
14 move. Khartoum, Sudan, is not like Arlington, Texas. It may
15 be hotter, but it is not like Arlington, Texas. So before he
16 decided to move, he went to see what was there, what offered
17 him an opportunity if he left the United States. He was
18 offered an important position for the commercial interests of
19 Mr. Usama Bin Laden, for an approximate salary of $1,200 a
20 month, which is an excellent salary in the Sudan.
21 So he moved his family to the Sudan, and you will
22 learn that he was trained when he came to the Sudan by one of
23 the deputy directors, or assistant, one of the companies to
24 buy and sell food and nonfood commodities. They spent two
25 months training him for commercial transactions, not military
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1 transactions but commercial transactions.
2 You will see that he traveled around the world trying
3 to find a market for the agricultural products of the Bin
4 Laden industry -- for corn, hibiscus, sesame. He traveled to
5 buy tractors for the agricultural company, trucks for the
6 construction company, bicycles for the import-export company
7 to resell to the Sudan. He was a busy person and he traveled
8 a lot. But he always came back to his family.
9 And he worked when he wasn't traveling. If he didn't
10 have other obligations, he worked as a personal secretary for
11 Mr. Bin Laden. That's not a kind of secret, personal kind of
12 confidante. That's, instead of being a pool secretary, that's
13 the personal secretary. He is the one who makes appointments.
14 He is the one who fits in. He is the one who follows up on
15 the business calls. When he wasn't traveling he did that for
16 a while. When he was traveling, somebody else did that. But
17 ultimately, because he proved himself intelligent,
18 hard-working, trustworthy, he was promoted, and he no longer
19 acted as a personal secretary at times for Mr. Bin Laden.
20 While the evidence will show that he handled money
21 for Mr. Bin Laden and he was trusted, he was never anywhere
22 near an inner circle of confidantes of Mr. Bin Laden, because
23 he was not a military man. He was not a political person. He
24 was not a religious scholar. He was a businessman, and he
25 related to Mr. Bin Laden as the businessman that he was. And
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1 you will see no evidence that he related to Mr. Bin Laden in
2 the Sudan as anything other than a businessman.
3 The Sudan became, was and became even more isolated,
4 and his family was unhappy. Mr. El Hage and his family, tired
5 of the isolation, was given the opportunity to move to what
6 was a much more cosmopolitan city, Nairobi, which is somewhat
7 the capital of East Africa. Generous Muslims in Germany began
8 a relief agency called Help African People, which he agreed to
9 start in Nairobi with help from the German Muslims and help
10 from the Sudanese friends as well.
11 He moved, as the government said, at the end of 1994
12 to Nairobi. By early 1994, all Americans were out of Somalia.
13 There was no Americans in Somalia. There was no need for a
14 Nairobi cell, as the government calls it, to deal with
15 Americans in Somalia because there were none. What was left
16 in Somalia were Somalis, and many international organizations
17 trying to help and feed the Somalis. And many warlords who
18 could care less about Islam or the tenets of Islam, and some
19 other leaders who believed in Islam and supported the tenets
20 of Islam.
21 Because it was difficult to start a relief agency in
22 Nairobi, he needed help to support his family. He started
23 doing more business deals again, semiprecious stones, trying
24 to buy and sell commodities. That's what he was trained in
25 and did for two years in the Sudan. And yes, he was in
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1 contact both with his old friends in the United States to
2 raise money for his relief agency, and to help him make some
3 money in his businesses, and, yes, remained in contact with
4 his friends from the Sudan. He even traveled to Slovakia, the
5 back half of what used to be Czechoslovakia while he was in
6 Kenya on behalf of Bin Laden's enterprises, to buy tractor
7 parts for the tractors in the agricultural business.
8 You will see no evidence of any agreement, any act,
9 any work, any conversation, any document that says Wadih El
10 Hage participated, wanted to, agreed to, in any criminal
11 conduct against the United States. Yes, the government said
12 he was friends with Haroun, who worked for him at times, a
13 person who apparently, as the government may prove or may not
14 prove, responsible for the bombing in the embassy in Nairobi.
15 And yes, there is correspondence with people affiliated with
16 Usama Bin Laden. And yes, in many ways he was willing to
17 assist and help his old friends.
18 But even though he was watched by the United States
19 government for a long time, even though hundreds, thousands of
20 documents were seized, you will see that what it shows is that
21 Wadih El Hage was involved in commercial activity and he was
22 also involved in activity for the purpose, lawful activity for
23 the purpose of assisting Muslims in need, in need for food, in
24 need for education, in need to combat the warlords who looked
25 for power at the expenses of their own Somali people.
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1 Yes, you will see a document that the government said
2 that speaks very much for itself from 1997 that calls for
3 military actions, activities. And while the government says
4 that the military activities is a word used by this
5 conspiracy, it is not their word because they don't consider
6 terrorism, the bombing of the embassies as military activity,
7 and neither does Mr. El Hage. What the document says, and you
8 will see, is that in 1997, that some of the old supporters of
9 Bin Laden were going to help the military activity in Somalia.
10 There were no Americans in Somalia. There were
11 Somalis in Somalia. There were Ethiopians attacking Somalis
12 in the West where the relief agencies were, where Wadih El
13 Hage worked. If this was a military action it was a military
14 action to help the Muslims who believed in Islam, believed in
15 not causing pain and suffering to their people, not starving
16 their people. It had nothing to do with the United States.
17 If the government wants to call a group of people in
18 Kenya who perhaps secretly had to help the religious Muslims
19 in Somalia a cell, so be it. But you will see that this
20 so-called cell in 1997, in 1996, while Wadih El Hage was in
21 Kenya, had nothing to do with any violent conspiracy or
22 conduct against the United States or United States interests.
23 There will be no evidence that Wadih El Hage
24 willfully, knowingly combined, conspired, confederated or
25 agreed to kill nationals of the United States.
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1 After 1997, upon his return to Pakistan, his home,
2 before he arrived, was searched by United States agents, and
3 they seized many things. You will see many of the things that
4 they seized. After that, Mr. El Hage decided it was time to
5 go back to the United States with his family, and he and his
6 wife sold whatever they could to raise the airfare to return
7 to the United States. And they did. After an exhausting
8 travel with six children, one infant, his wife, through Saudi
9 Arabia to New York, the government, absolutely aware of his
10 trip, took him from his family at the airport when they were
11 collecting their bags, kept him up late at night. They came
12 and got him the next day and put him into the grand jury,
13 exhausted, knowing that the government said that he was at
14 risk, knowing that many of the people who supported religious
15 Muslims were at risk from their home countries, who do not
16 respect the rights that we do in our country, and grilled him
17 for hours in the grand jury, asked him to remember things that
18 occurred six, seven years ago.
19 After that, he went home to Arlington, Texas, and
20 this supposed trusted member of Usama Bin Laden's terrorist
21 group, Usama Bin Laden, multi, multi, multimillionaire, was
22 able to convince a friend of his, someone who he knew from
23 before he left Arlington, to allow him to manage a tire store
24 in Fort Worth for $400 a week. I say convince him because he
25 had to, because Mr. El Hage's right arm was deformed, and he
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1 had to convince him that he could actually change the tires,
2 take the tires down and put them up. And he ran that store
3 with the perseverance, the guts, the hard work that he has
4 shown through all of his life.
5 He lived quietly with his family, also as a mediator
6 in disputes in the Arlington mosque. He lived peacefully,
7 caring for his family, now having seven children. He left
8 everybody alone.
9 This time world events not only changed his life,
10 shattered his life. We know, because the government has
11 conceded that Mr. El Hage had nothing to do with those
12 horrific bombings. But he was brought back and asked
13 questions that the government had asked him before, that they
14 knew the answers of, and he was arrested and charged with
15 perjury.
16 Two and a half years later, he now has his
17 opportunity for you good citizens of our country -- not the
18 prosecutors, not the government -- to make a decision on him.
19 Where is the evidence? We await this opportunity. We will
20 take advantage of this opportunity.
21 I ask you to do one thing. It is really one thing
22 but it is a very difficult thing, because I sat here when the
23 government gave a powerful opening statement about the horror
24 of the bombings and their effect, and it is even going to be
25 more horrible. You are going to see photographs. You are
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1 going to see people. It's going to be terrible. It is a
2 difficult thing. But I ask you to not let that horror, that
3 destruction, steer you away from your job, your job as the
4 people who stand between each and every American and even
5 nonAmericans, and the power, the might of the government when
6 they want to do something. Do not lose sight of that, because
7 if you don't lose sight of that, you will see that the
8 evidence will not be there, and the government will not prove
9 that Mr. El Hage conspired, agreed, committed, participated in
10 any violent act against his new country, the country of his
11 seven children, of his wife, and her family.
12 And yes, be patient. Listen carefully. It is going
13 to be a very long trial. Don't tune out. Don't pay attention
14 to that whistle. Concentrate, and do what Americans do best,
15 use their common sense. And hold the government to their
16 burden. If you do so, then this long for Wadih El Hage will
17 be worthwhile.
18 Thank you very much.
19 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Schmidt. Mr. Ricco.
20 MR. BAUGH: Your Honor, may we take a short break?
21 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, we will have to
22 take another recess.
23 (Jury excused)
24 THE COURT: Is the government going to furnish the
25 jury with pads to take notes?
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
2 THE COURT: You will have that tomorrow morning?
3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
4 (Recess)
5 THE COURT: We will hear one more opening and then we
6 will break for lunch. Bring the jury in, please.
7 (Jury present)
8 THE COURT: Mr. Ricco.
9 MR. RICCO: Good morning, everyone. It would be an
10 understatement to say that I thought a long time about what I
11 would say to you this morning, because I have. I was thinking
12 about it during jury selection. I was thinking about it doing
13 my 5:00 runs in Central Park. I was thinking about it as I
14 sat at home yesterday. And I thought about all of the corny
15 things that lawyers often say to jurors that I try not to say,
16 and I was trying to find a place to start with you all in this
17 trial. I really couldn't come up with a very good place to
18 start, because where could I start?
19 I stop and I listen to wind. Hear the whistling?
20 People hear different things, they do things differently.
21 Many of you who have been in the court never have heard that
22 wind like that. The wind is here today. Many people say the
23 voices are in the wind, raging in the wind.
24 There was a lot of suffering in this case, lot of
25 pain in this case. To avoid it is to avoid the reality that
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1 the night follows day. And to me, you can hear it in the wind
2 today as we start this trial. It's a reminder. It's a call,
3 a reality check. If you listen, you hear those voices.
4 People lost, people suffering. It says different things to
5 different people. Suffering has always said different things
6 to different people. To those who are inflicting the pain,
7 they don't hear it. To the people who receive it, they cry
8 out.
9 This case is about that, because I know, and looking
10 in the faces of all of you, that it is going to be extremely
11 difficult to overcome the reality that so many people died
12 here, so many young people died here, so many people were
13 injured here, almost to the point where you would sit back and
14 say, what you talking about. Trial. I'm ready to jump over
15 this bar right now and end this. Trial for who? For them?
16 And then there is a side of me that understands pain.
17 And the people who suffer from pain always ask for what?
18 Revenge? Retribution? No. They always ask that justice is
19 done. Don't they? I don't care if you talking about black
20 South Africans, Native Americans, African-Americans living
21 here in this country who have suffered, people who are in the
22 Islamic world who have suffered, people in the Hindu world who
23 have suffered, people in the Hebrew world who have suffered.
24 What do they ask for? That justice is served. It's our hope
25 that we have selected at least 12 people who can be a part of
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1 the process to see that that is done.
2 So with that, your Honor, thank you very much.
3 Government. Again I remind you that Mr. Odeh is represented
4 by Miss Babcock, Mr. Herman, and Mr. Wilford. And it is
5 almost -- I've almost said enough. It's time to sit down and
6 let the trial start, and I am very close to doing it.
7 There are some things that you have to know about
8 this case as you begin this process. It's going to be a long
9 trial, and I guarantee that there are going to be mornings
10 when you walk through that door, you're not going to want to
11 see a face over here. You're going to be angry, you're going
12 to be bitter, because you're going to have reacted as human
13 beings to things that you have seen and heard in this
14 courtroom. What I will be asking you to do now, and as you
15 see any one of the lawyers rise during the trial we are going
16 to be asking you to overcome that anger and overcome that
17 bitterness, to keep your minds open to what, the concept of
18 fairness.
19 I am not going to ask you to do what most Americans
20 do most of the time and that is prejudge, make their mind up,
21 and don't want to listen to nobody about nothing. I'm going
22 to ask you to do what few Americans do, the real people do,
23 and that is, no matter how hard they get hit, they can listen.
24 This is going to be a marathon, and in a marathon you
25 got a lot of people who take off from the gate running and
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1 then you have other people who sit and understand it's a long
2 process.
3 This is going to be a long process. I'm convinced I
4 can say nothing to you today that you will remember at the end
5 of this trial or halfway through this trial, other than this:
6 When you come here each day, see that justice is served.
7 Now, the government opened, Mr. Butler opened. It
8 was a powerful opening. And he set forth what the government
9 intended to prove. What he said was that Mohamed Odeh, came
10 over and pointed to him, he said Mohamed agreed to join an
11 organization whose goals was to kill Americans. And he said,
12 to prove that, you would have to keep your eye on three
13 things. One was that he trained people in Somalia. Two was
14 that he was running a fishing business, right? Right? And
15 the third thing that proved he joined an organization that was
16 intent on killing Americans is that he left town when somebody
17 told him to. Right?
18 Obviously there must be something more to the story
19 than that, because those three things don't prove a darn
20 thing. What you were told was, the evidence will show what he
21 intended to do. So what I ask you to do is pay attention to
22 the evidence.
23 What you're going to find from this case straight off
24 is that Mohamed Odeh is an extremely devoted religious man.
25 You're going to find out that Mohamed Odeh is a soldier. He's
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1 a soldier. You see it right there. In our country as
2 civilians, we very rarely meet a man like Mohamed Odeh. When
3 you meet him, it's on a battlefield, or at his carpentry shop,
4 or at his fishing business. He has never been to America,
5 though he speaks English -- a little bit.
6 You're going to find that his participation as a
7 soldier is based on one thing, his love of Islam, his complete
8 faith in the Koran, the sharia. You are looking at a person
9 who believes in it with every fiber of his being, and everyone
10 that comes in contact with him comes in contact with Mohamed
11 Odeh's belief and his religion.
12 So you say Mr. Ricco, that is very interesting to
13 know, but what does that have to do with this case? It has
14 everything to do with this case, because Mohamed Odeh's
15 reasons for joining Al Qaeda, his reasons for being in Kenya,
16 his reasons for being in Somalia, and his reasons for leaving
17 Kenya when he was told to do so are all based on his religious
18 beliefs.
19 The government will tell you through its witnesses
20 that Mohamed Odeh joined Al Qaeda but not when he was first
21 approached with it. He joined, but there was a caveat to
22 Mohamed Odeh joining Al Qaeda. See, before he joined he
23 studied it, checked it out. He wanted to know what he was
24 getting into. Some people say he's difficult. He's just
25 different. And when he joined Al Qaeda, he did not join to
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1 kill Americans. He joined Al Qaeda, and he agreed to follow
2 Bin Laden, but only to the extent that Bin Laden would engage
3 in acts that were Islamically correct.
4 To us who live in this culture, that's a difference
5 without a distinction, it's meaningless. The difficulty that
6 you have in this case is that you as jurors have to try to
7 understand actions and the associations of a person who is not
8 a part of our culture. The nuances of his culture that are
9 important to him, that help guide him in his decisions are
10 something that's a little foreign to us. Some of us, you're
11 either with it or not. Take it or leave it Sam. He doesn't
12 live in that type of culture.
13 Mohamed did not come to Islam that way initially.
14 You will find, for example, that his parents, his father was a
15 teacher and his parents sent him off to college when he was a
16 little older than most of us when we go to college. And he
17 went to school to study engineering.
18 While he was in college, like many of us who go to
19 college, he was exposed to ideas. Some of the ideas that
20 Mohamed was exposed to was the Islamic revolution that was
21 taking place in the world at that time. Some of us when we go
22 to school, all we worry about is getting our degree so we can
23 get out here, get a good job and make as much money as we can
24 for as long as we can. Well, he's not like that. He was
25 called into the religious faith, and eventually he left the
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1 Far East University and he traveled to Afghanistan.
2 And why did he go to Afghanistan? He went to
3 Afghanistan for the same reason that tens of thousands of
4 other Muslims all around the world and nonMuslims went to
5 Afghanistan. He went there because he was fighting -- he went
6 there to support the fight to take the yoke of the Russian
7 government off the backs of Muslim people. He didn't go there
8 to sell shoes. He went there as a soldier, and he is proud of
9 that. Let me say that again. He's proud of that. He's a
10 straight-up person.
11 In Afghanistan, he wasn't trained in terrorism.
12 That's a perspective. He was trained in how to fight in a
13 battlefield. He was a college student one week and he became
14 involved in a battlefield the next. Somebody had to teach him
15 how to do that, and he was taught those skills, and he was
16 taught them well, because he's still here.
17 In Afghanistan, he had an opportunity to meet others,
18 and one of those others were people associated with Usama Bin
19 Laden.
20 Now, I'm going to tell you something. Mohamed Odeh
21 does not distance himself from Usama Bin Laden, because as a
22 Muslim, he doesn't believe that that's his right or his
23 responsibilities. He is not Usama Bin Laden, and, contrary to
24 our perception of people in the Islamic world, that they are
25 sort of the horde of unthinking people who just act as robots,
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1 just like other stereotypes that people have in this culture,
2 it is so far from the truth that it's choking. Mohamed
3 participated in Afghanistan, joined Al Qaeda, and when time
4 came for him to leave Afghanistan, he left there with a valid
5 Jordanian passport.
6 That becomes important. It becomes important because
7 to me it is important for you to understand a couple of
8 things. One, who is Mohamed Odeh? Two, what is Al Qaeda?
9 Three, what did he have to do with it? Four, how come he was
10 in Kenya? Five, why he left? And six, with all that training
11 and what not, how come he spoke to the American government
12 when they asked him to?
13 These are important points. These are points that
14 you need to focus in on if you're interested in giving Mohamed
15 a fair trial, in addition to the points that the government
16 wants you to listen to. I am not talking to the exclusion of
17 the government.
18 You got to understand what he was doing in Kenya, why
19 he left, and how he left. What the facts are going to show is
20 that Mohamed came to Kenya lawfully with his Jordanian
21 passport. He lived in Kenya. Mohamed fell in love in Kenya.
22 Yes, Muslims fall in love, just like everybody else. And
23 you're going to find that he met a Kenyan woman, and that they
24 have children, one of which he has never seen. What you are
25 going to find is that he had a home for himself in Kenya. I
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1 like to say that he was living in less than modest
2 accommodations. He reminds me that they are very less than
3 modest.
4 What the evidence is going to show is that Mohamed
5 Odeh lived in a little town called Witu. Witu is a little
6 place barely on the map. It's less than 5,000 people. They
7 have no running water. At times he drinks rainwater, like
8 everybody else who lives in Witu. There is no postal service
9 in Witu. They have two telephones in the entire town. He
10 lived there in a mud-thatched hut with his wife. To live like
11 that, you got to be in love, in today's world. And he was in
12 love, and he still is. Witu is a completely isolated town.
13 Mohamed chose Kenya because of the involvement in Somalia, its
14 proximity, but he chose the countryside of Kenya because it
15 gave him solitude and a chance to think.
16 It becomes important for you to understand this
17 because the government puts into compartments the facts of his
18 life, and they say to you these three oblique facts, the
19 reason why he left Kenya, the fishing business, and his work
20 in Somalia proves he intended to kill Americans.
21 Several months before this event happened, people who
22 participated in the bombing started to come to Kenya. One of
23 those people spoke to Mohamed. They told Mohamed, you going
24 to have to leave Kenya several months from now. So get ready.
25 So what did Mohamed do? He applied for his passport. Several
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1 months went by and he saw another visitor. We're going to
2 have to leave soon. Mohamed was not ready to leave. Mohamed
3 had a family, he had a business, he had some responsibilities.
4 As the day became closer to the time of August 7,
5 people began to get impatient with Mohamed. Now, it becomes
6 important, and Mohamed leaving Kenya is important, because
7 Mohamed knows everybody, even though he's living in Witu.
8 Why? Because he's trained with some of the people, he's
9 fought with them.
10 When he is approached, the attitude at first several
11 months ago was sort of soft. Now the attitude was more
12 urgent. What he was ultimately told was, you have to leave
13 now, you got to go. And Mohamed, who was not prepared to go,
14 ran into one of the persons on the street, and in the middle
15 of the street there was a shouting match between Mohamed and
16 one of the individuals. And they wanted him to leave. He
17 didn't have the travel papers to leave, so they offered to
18 give him the travel papers to leave. Mohamed would have
19 preferred to travel on his own passport, and he did not. He
20 took the advice of another, and he traveled with that
21 passport. And he didn't shave his beard to hide his identity.
22 He's going to Afghanistan where people know him. He shaved
23 his beard because the passport that they gave him had a
24 picture with a guy with a beard on it. So the notion was, I'm
25 going to say well, that's me without the beard.
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1 Now, what you going to find, which is important, is
2 that after the bombing all of the people scattered. Some went
3 to Karachi, some went to Pakistan. Some made their way back
4 to Afghanistan. Mohamed was asked to leave Kenya, because
5 Mohamed was a link.
6 See, the one thing you want to understand about Islam
7 is that there are a lot of people in Islam who are really true
8 believers, and in Islam, the concept of committing suicide is
9 fundamental, of killing oneself is not permissible. The
10 concept of killing children is not permissible. The concept
11 of blowing innocent people up is not permissible.
12 I submit to you that when this plan was hatched, the
13 last person that anybody wanted to tell what was happening was
14 Mohamed Odeh, because Mohamed Odeh did not and would not
15 participate in any act that is contrary to his fundamental
16 religious beliefs, and those acts were. And we believe the
17 evidence in this case is going to show that without a doubt.
18 So it was important for him to leave. He was moving
19 too slow, but he had to go. When he was told you have to get
20 to Afghanistan, he had to go.
21 What you are going to find is that when he was
22 traveling with this passport that was given to him, when he
23 got to Karachi, everybody got through except for who? The guy
24 with the phony passport. In a lot of ways Mohamed, when he
25 got stopped at the airport, created a diversion that allowed
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1 the other people to slide away. The evidence is going to show
2 that in that case.
3 Some of you may say, why did they ask Mohamed to
4 leave? Because they recognized that if you ask Mohamed a
5 question you're going to get an answer. And Mohamed did
6 exactly what I submit to you people feel he would do, because
7 he was brought back to Kenya and he was questioned by US
8 officials and Kenyan officials. And what did Mohamed say when
9 he was questioned? There was some talk about him getting a
10 lawyer and efforts were made to accomplish that, but
11 ultimately there was no lawyer available for him, and the
12 conversation went back and forth, and Mohamed said I want to
13 speak to the Americans alone, I'd like to speak to the
14 Americans about the questioning. He did that for a reason.
15 And ultimately what was accommodated was that he was
16 questioned by the Americans with the Kenyans present. And
17 Mohamed spoke about his involvement in Al Qaeda, his reasons
18 for joining Al Qaeda, his life in Kenya.
19 Mohamed Odeh had no reason to kill Kenyans. He is
20 married to a Kenyan. His children are Kenyan. His neighbors
21 are Kenyan. So he spoke to them about his involvement. And
22 when he was asked questions he answered them. That might be a
23 little difficult for some people but that's what happened. He
24 was shown pictures, he responded. So, they say, why did this
25 hardcore person who is trained in terrorism, etc., etc., why
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1 did he speak? He spoke because he had nothing to hide.
2 During the trial, you will have the opportunity to
3 read his statements. You will find that the atmosphere that
4 Mr. Odeh was questioned in was calm, it was cordial. He had
5 an opportunity to speak and to be heard. Questions were
6 asked. He was given breaks. But you also are going to hear
7 there was a little stuff in the game, and the part of the game
8 was that he was held incommunicado there for about 13 days,
9 unable to contact his wife, unable to contact his family, and
10 subject to questioning over that time period. And throughout
11 that time period he was asked many questions over around
12 again, from different angles back and forth, and then when
13 they finally stopped asking him questions, they started asking
14 hypothetical questions. So in the statement you will see him
15 responding to hypothetical questions, what if, what if this
16 and what if that.
17 I mention that to you because it is going to be
18 important when you listen to the facts, and when you see us
19 during the trial, when you see Mr. Wilford, when you see
20 Mr. Herman, when you see Miss Babcock talking to witnesses,
21 asking them questions, the questions we ask them are going to
22 tie into those points that we think are important to his
23 defense and deal with the issues raised by the government in
24 its opening.
25 During the preliminary charges to you, the judge
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1 talked about inferences, rainy days, seeing people in
2 raincoats. I am going to submit to you this, that one of the
3 things I want you to keep in mind during the trial is not so
4 much whether or not an inference is reasonable, but I want you
5 to ask yourselves whether or not the inferences that people
6 are asking you to draw are accurate, whether they are
7 accurate.
8 I have said probably most of what I want to say at
9 this point. A lot of what I am talking about is difficult for
10 you to focus on now. That's because Mr. Butler was right.
11 There are so many names, there are so many events that it is
12 very difficult to understand how these things connect now.
13 But as the trial progresses, you will become more familiar
14 with the names, more familiar with the places, and you will
15 begin to make the connections.
16 My concern is that you don't rush to judgment before
17 the end process and that you resist the great urge to make up
18 one's mind and to look down at these men and say uh uh, not
19 me, I'm not hearing it. That is going to be our greatest
20 struggle. The government has said, they have talked about his
21 association, I want you to look at his association and to see
22 whether or not the inference that the government wants you to
23 draw is an accurate one.
24 In a lot of ways this case is about many, many
25 different things, too many to cover in an opening statement.
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1 It's important for you to understand that Al Qaeda is a very
2 broad concept. The concept of Al Qaeda and what made it
3 attractive to so many young men, and not so young men, from
4 around the world was not that it stood for fighting but the
5 concept of Al Qaeda stood for helping people that were poor
6 and down, helping them financially, helping them spiritually.
7 And in some instances it also meant fighting.
8 But it is important for you to recognize, not to get
9 caught up in what I call demagoguery. It's done in our
10 culture. If you are a member of the Nation of Islam you're
11 this, if you're a member of that you're this. And people in
12 our culture make associations based on what people wear and
13 how they talk and they're often wrong.
14 It's very difficult to understand a concept like Al
15 Qaeda because we don't have one in our culture. So you're
16 going to have to try to deal with what that concept means, and
17 what it meant to Mohamed Odeh. Because, see, Mohamed Odeh is
18 a person who thinks. He's a man. He has a right to say no, I
19 don't want to be a part of that. And Al Qaeda does not
20 require his blind allegiance. He has a right to think and to
21 make an assessment. And he is very dogmatic about that.
22 Right?
23 That's about all I have to say. During jury
24 selection we spent a lot of time talking about the death
25 penalty, could you do this and could you do that. Mohamed
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1 Odeh is not faced with the death penalty in this case. Your
2 decision on his case is guilt or innocence. It's the enormity
3 of the loss of life that makes it very, very difficult in this
4 case.
5 I am a person, very difficult for me to listen to
6 people that talk at me. As jurors y'all are about halfway
7 through a day of having lawyers talk at you. It's very
8 difficult to do it. All of the lawyers have so much to say,
9 both the government and the defense, so much to bring to your
10 attention.
11 You got to fight off the weakening, you got to hang
12 in there, because if you don't, you're going to miss it. And
13 in a case like this where so much is involved, it's apparent
14 from all the people who are here today, and the time and the
15 care that we took in selecting you as jurors, how important
16 this case is.
17 In the end, when it is all said and done, we have to
18 accept your judgment. We believed that we picked people who
19 can exercise sound judgment, and we hope and pray that we were
20 correct. If we were not correct, then this exercise is a
21 waste of time for everyone involved.
22 So with that, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have
23 to say this morning, and let's see what the trial brings on.
24 Thank you very much. Thank you, your Honor.
25 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Ricco. We will take our
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1 luncheon recess and we are adjourned until 2:15.
2 (Luncheon recess)
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1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N
2 2:15 p.m.
3 (In open court; jury not present)
4 THE COURT: Good afternoon. You may be seated. A
5 couple of logistical items. Just let me caution you again
6 about the fact that there is a speaker that takes everything
7 down to room 7 for the overflow. It picks up various things.
8 Mr. Cohn, you're talking to somebody.
9 MR. COHN: I know. We're concerned about it. We
10 don't know what to do about it.
11 THE COURT: Well, just be aware of it, that it is a
12 problem.
13 MR. COHN: I'm trying to cut out the speaker here and
14 we can't.
15 THE COURT: With respect to Thursday where the jury
16 is not coming in, but we're conferencing at 2:30, the
17 interpreters service asked whether interpreters will be needed
18 on Thursday. That's a question of whether counsel wish to
19 have their clients present. My understanding is it is
20 primarily discovery and CIPA matters.
21 MR. COHN: That's what it is primarily.
22 THE COURT: It's got to be a yes or a no.
23 MR. RUHNKE: No.
24 THE COURT: No, we do not need interpreters.
25 MR. RUHNKE: We are checking, but it's our feeling we
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1 probably won't.
2 THE COURT: Please let me know definitively first
3 thing tomorrow because feelings don't translate into
4 instructions.
5 I have a recollection of having received a letter
6 which I cannot locate -- which isn't surprising because I'm
7 still working out the logistics of functioning in the two
8 courthouses -- dealing with the testimony of the next witness
9 and hearsay. Did somebody send me a letter?
10 MR. DRATEL: Yes, your Honor.
11 THE COURT: Do you have another copy of that letter?
12 MR. DRATEL: Yes.
13 THE COURT: My thought would be, unless anyone has
14 any strong objection, that we end early today. The weather is
15 pretty bad. I'm sure the jurors will appreciate it. And that
16 we use the time after the jury leaves to deal with problems,
17 if there are any, relating to the next witness. Is that
18 agreeable with everybody?
19 MR. COHN: Yes, your Honor, as far as I'm concerned I
20 think I'll be 15 or 20 minutes, and I don't know how long Mr.
21 Schneider has, but I can't imagine we're going to fill out the
22 day.
23 THE COURT: All right. This morning when I made
24 available the blank questionnaire I was unaware of the fact
25 that I received a letter from Cable News Network asking to see
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1 the blank questionnaires. That we've given them. Their other
2 request is the completed juror questionnaires of the 18 chosen
3 members of the jury.
4 What I would ask is that the government and defense
5 designate some paralegal to carefully edit a set of those
6 questionnaires so that we are confident that there is nothing
7 contained in the questionnaire which can lead to establishing
8 the identity of the juror. Some of these questionnaires it
9 does not take very skilled investigator to ascertain who the
10 person is. So if in doubt the matter should be deleted.
11 Obviously, gender, age, general statement as to occupation,
12 things of that sort are all right. Can we have that by
13 Wednesday morning?
14 Our agenda for Thursday is El Hage discovery and
15 CIPA. Now, I received letters saying that the defense were
16 going to file letters with respect to CIPA on Friday.
17 Obviously, it would be much more helpful if we could have
18 those letters before the Thursday.
19 MR. SCHMIDT: I don't think it was concerning Mr. El
20 Hage, your Honor.
21 THE COURT: I think it was maybe Mr. Cohn.
22 MR. COHN: We have a more important problem, your
23 Honor. I just have to advise the Court that my client has
24 instructed me not to open, and I don't know if I am going to
25 obey that, but I'm putting it on the record that he has made
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1 that instruction.
2 THE COURT: Well, that's a decision for you to make
3 in the first instance, Mr. Cohn.
4 MR. COHN: I know, but I think that given everything
5 if he gives me such an instruction, the record ought to
6 reflect it.
7 THE COURT: The record now reflects it. Whether you
8 open or not is something I think you ought to advise us as to
9 what you are going to do before the moment arrives and the
10 jury is here.
11 MR. COHN: Counsel having conferred, we're not going
12 to open.
13 THE COURT: No opening, all right. That will make
14 and even shorter afternoon.
15 All right. I take it there will be an opening on
16 behalf of KK Mohamed?
17 MR. SCHNEIDER: Yes, your Honor.
18 THE COURT: Very well. Mr. Cohn, will you rise and
19 say that you waive opening?
20 MR. COHN: Yes, your Honor.
21 THE COURT: Now I prepared the jury for that in my
22 preliminary remarks saying --
23 MR. COHN: I would appreciate it.
24 THE COURT: Who would be next?
25 MR. SCHNEIDER: Mr. Schneider, your Honor.
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1 THE COURT: Mr. Csakany, I take it transportation
2 will be available for the jurors as soon as they're finished?
3 MR. CSAKANY: That's right, your Honor.
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1 (Jury present)
2 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're going
3 to have a relatively short afternoon. We began a little early
4 and we're going to end a little early. I can't guarantee that
5 that will happen regularly, but we can do it today and since
6 the weather is very bad out there, I'm sure you'll appreciate
7 being able to get home early.
8 Please, tomorrow morning, allow for the weather
9 conditions so that we can begin promptly tomorrow. I fully
10 anticipate we'll have a full day tomorrow.
11 I believe the next order of business is an opening
12 statement on behalf of the defendant KK Mohamed. Mr.
13 Schneider.
14 MR. SCHNEIDER: Thank you, your Honor.
15 Good afternoon. Now this morning Mr. Butler got up
16 to you and he spoke and he had very powerful images that he
17 gave you in his opening statement.
18 THE COURT: You are going to have to use that
19 microphone.
20 MR. SCHNEIDER: Whether I like it or not.
21 THE COURT: Only if you want to be heard.
22 (Laughter)
23 MR. SCHNEIDER: As long as the jurors can hear me,
24 your Honor. Now, when those compelling images that he
25 conjured up that you were thinking about the feelings that you
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1 had, the thoughts that you went through he spoke about the
2 Kenyan embassy, the bombing of the United States embassy in
3 Kenya, excuse me. And at that point he was talking about it
4 and you pictured people coming to work, just living their
5 lives the regular way and then all of a sudden, boom, the
6 world changes.
7 Then he began to speak to you and he said: Well,
8 these two bombings were part of a worldwide plot, and he kept
9 discussing everything. And I like jerked up, and I had to
10 listen and I had to say to myself: Did I miss something? Did
11 I miss the whole point of his opening? Because all he spoke
12 to you about in the beginning was the bombing in Nairobi.
13 He completely forgot in the beginning of his opening,
14 before he said to you these two bombings are part of a
15 worldwide conspiracy, he didn't say word one about the bombing
16 in Tanzania. And I have to tell you it concerns me that the
17 government in their opening, the first few minutes when
18 they're talking to you about very powerful moving images
19 forgets about the Tanzania bombing especially when my client
20 KK Mohamed is involved only in that in their charges, in their
21 allegations.
22 So I have to remember to try to speak to you now, so
23 you won't forget things, so you won't combine things, so you
24 won't confuse things. And what's important about that is that
25 you have to know facts, you have to know names, you have to
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1 know dates, and places. And Mr. Butler is correct, it's
2 important to give just a road map, because there is years and
3 years and hundreds of miles and so many names, foreign and
4 nonforeign names, that will be difficult for you to remember.
5 So I'm going to try to make your life a little bit
6 easier if I can. I'm going to try to make what really matters
7 in this case regarding my client, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, who
8 I am going to refer to KK, so that there will be no confusion,
9 because you're going to hear so many names over the months
10 that may overlap that are initially unfamiliar to you. So
11 there is no one else that's going to refer to anybody except
12 KK. So that's what I'm going to talk to you about. I'm going
13 to make it clear for you. I'm going to make it easier for
14 you.
15 The government's evidence is going to show you that
16 in the months preceding the August 7, 1998 bombing they are
17 going to show you that he knowingly participated in the making
18 of a bomb. They are going to show you -- this is what the
19 evidence is going to show -- they are going to show you that
20 the bomb that he knowingly participated in was later used to
21 bomb the American embassy in Tanzania. And he's going to show
22 you, the government's going to show you, that as a result of
23 that one bomb 11 Tanzanians were killed, dozens were hurt.
24 Ladies and gentlemen, we are not running away from
25 the evidence. We are not running away from the truth. We are
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1 here confronting it, telling you the parts that refer to him
2 and reminding you of the parts that do not refer to him.
3 When you're asked to judge someone or asked to judge
4 someone's conduct, it's important for you to know who that
5 person is, who he's not, what that person actually did and
6 what he didn't do; why he did certain things; what he knew and
7 what he didn't know. And that's how you can first analyze and
8 judge someone, someone's actions, someone's conduct, when you
9 know all of those things.
10 Now, let's look, if we can, at what he did not do,
11 what he didn't know about, because this will take those issues
12 off the table and make your life, I hope, easier and clearer
13 and more confined, discrete and finite. Because I am speaking
14 to you no matter how many times I may get up and laugh and
15 joke with the other members of the defense team for all these
16 defendants, I represent one defendant here, Khalfan Khamis
17 Mohamed. We're friendly. We get along, everybody, that's it.
18 But, remember, I'm speaking to you on his behalf and his
19 behalf only.
20 So let's look at what he didn't do. He never had
21 anything to do with the Kenyan bombing. Did you hear that?
22 He never had anything to do with the Kenyan bombing. I'm not
23 just saying that as a lawyer. I'm telling you that because he
24 is not charged with it. He never knew about it until he heard
25 about it in the news. He never talked to anybody about it.
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1 He had no knowledge about it. He never discussed it. He
2 never planned it. He had nothing to do with the Kenyan
3 bombing.
4 Usama Bin Laden, number one guy, worldwide terrorist.
5 Remember during jury selection how many of you when you were
6 asked what you heard about this, what you read about, not one
7 of you, not one of you knew any of the names of the people
8 here. You did, some of you, knew Bin Laden: Bin Laden's
9 this, Bin Laden's that; Bin Laden did this; he did that.
10 That's about Bin Laden.
11 What I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, see that
12 guy sitting right there, okay? He never met Mr. Bin Laden.
13 He never talked to Mr. Bin Laden. He never heard him speak.
14 He never heard him speak at a rally. He never heard him speak
15 on the radio. He never heard him speak on the TV set. He
16 never heard him speak on any kind that have been distributed
17 world wide to his so-called followers. He was, if he bumped
18 into him on the street and saw him somewhere in Tanzinia, he
19 wouldn't know who the man was back in 1998.
20 Not only did he have nothing to do with Mr. Bin Laden
21 himself, he had nothing to do with any organization remotely
22 connected to Mr. Bin Laden. He nothing to do with any
23 businesses remotely connected to Mr. Bin Laden, and he had
24 nothing to do with any group remotely connected to Mr. Bin
25 Laden. That now takes that issue off the table for you. It's
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1 uncontroverted, and you can't forget it. You have to remember
2 what they charged, what he did and what he didn't do.
3 Al Qaeda. He is not today, nor was he in '98 or 93,
4 '94, in any year, he was not, nor was he ever a member of this
5 thing called al Qaeda. Never. Never signed his name to
6 membership. Never swore any kind of oath. Bayat, B-A-Y-A-T,
7 that's a sworn oath to become a member of al Qaeda. If this
8 thing exists the government will tell you about that. And I'm
9 telling you there is no evidence in the world that you will
10 hear from the witness presented by the government that he ever
11 swore to any oath to al Qaeda.
12 He never discussed with anybody who he may have
13 talked about anything about al Qaeda. He never heard of the
14 group. He never heard of the organization. Nothing
15 whatsoever to do with that. Now, so that's off the table.
16 Remember him and the evidence. A fatwa, one of these
17 statements, F-A-T-W-A, a statement that was supposedly issued
18 by Mr. Bin Laden. He, KK Mohamed, never heard any statements
19 issued by Mr. Bin Laden to kill anybody, Americans, military,
20 civilians, nothing whatsoever.
21 These are things you can't ignore. These are things
22 you can't forget. These are things you must always focus on
23 when you're asked to evaluate the evidence against someone who
24 is facing the death penalty.
25 (Pause)
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1 Well, let's look at again when what else KK didn't do
2 or didn't know in evaluating this case. Let's look at who
3 else is more -- let's look at who else was more involved.
4 Let's look at who else was more necessary for the successful
5 completion of any operation. Let's look at who else was
6 irreplaceable in this organization or in this plan. Let's
7 look at who else is more culpable, more guilty, more involved
8 than KK Mohamed, because that's something that you can't just
9 ignore when you are deciding someone's fate.
10 You know whenever you have an organization or a group
11 or a plan there is usually an organization hierarchy somehow
12 somewhere, and what happens is people that do the theory they
13 discuss, they plan the theory, the ideology. They're the
14 thinkers. Well, he clearly was not part of that. That was
15 not his job or his role. He was not part of the ideology in
16 terms of making up how he followed what he should be doing.
17 He is not the source of any money. You need money to
18 run these organizations, to run these plans, these
19 conspiracies, these plots. He was never the source of any
20 money.
21 He was never the source of any supply of anything
22 that was needed to be made or to be done. He never supplied
23 those necessary items. He was not a planner of any of these
24 next steps. He didn't give orders.
25 He was not a leader. He was not someone who said
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1 okay, now you must do this; now you must make arrangements to
2 do that. That was not his role. He was not a recruiter to go
3 and find other people to help in this plan.
4 He was not an expert. An expert is someone who you
5 need to carry out a mission. Nobody needed him for anything.
6 He was not an expert. There are experts in military, in
7 tactics, in escape, in making bombs, in engineering, in
8 mechanics, in travel, anything of that. He was not a
9 necessary element in any aspect of any mission whatsoever. He
10 was not a technician. He didn't even know how to put one
11 thing together with something else.
12 What was he? He was a gofer. That's it. Do this.
13 Okay. Get that. Okay. We need this. Okay. I'll obey.
14 I'll listen. I'll do whatever you need me to do.
15 He was used by the higherups, by the leaders, by the
16 people who make the ultimate decisions in these kind of things
17 out in the world. Not him.
18 He was a fungible worker, someone who can easily be
19 exchanged, interchanged with anybody else. When you hear
20 about what he did, when the government presents the evidence
21 to you about what he did, you can just pick him up, you can
22 just take him out, you can move him away, and you can put
23 anybody else in the world in his spot and that person will
24 fill his role just like that.
25 And that means a lot in a case like this. That means
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1 a lot when you are discussing or evaluating the relative
2 responsibilities of people involved in a mission, or when
3 you're asked to evaluate in a death penalty case the relative
4 culpability of people involved in a mission.
5 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to remind
6 you of what I said earlier, and what I said with respect to
7 the death penalty, and that is that punishment and the death
8 penalty is not and issue with respect to the determination
9 whether the government has proved beyond a reasonable doubt
10 the guilt of the defendant.
11 When you hear arguments with respect to death penalty
12 and relative culpability and so on, understand that punishment
13 is not at all a consideration with respect to the question of
14 whether or not at the end of this proceeding the government
15 will have proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable
16 doubt.
17 MR. SCHNEIDER: Thank you, your Honor.
18 Now, when you are evaluating the evidence in this
19 proceeding and listening to who did what and the evidence
20 against KK Mohamed, you'll hear what he did, and what others
21 did. That is an appropriate thing for you to consider at the
22 first proceeding, as the Judge just told you.
23 So he is someone who had no special knowledge. He
24 had no unique talents. He had nothing that he brought to the
25 table that was all of his own. He was a pawn and he was a
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1 pawn that was used by people who are not here before you now.
2 Now, I told you a little bit about what he didn't do
3 and what he wasn't involved in. And I also spoke to you about
4 Mr. Butler's compelling powerful opening. And he himself said
5 that the words do not or cannot convey to you the devastation,
6 the feeling, the damage that went on there back in August of
7 1998, and he's right.
8 But I'm telling you now, ladies and gentlemen, you're
9 going to see photographs, you're going to see videos, you're
10 going to hear, you're going to see images that could very well
11 stay with you forever, and you're going to react in your
12 hearts, in your stomach, and in your head, and you're going to
13 hear people, victims talking to you about what it was like.
14 You're going to hear it, and you're going to react in your
15 heart, in your stomachs and in your head.
16 And you're also going to hear some of the words, some
17 of the words, some of the biting, the terrible words that the
18 government says KK Mohamed used when he was questioned after
19 he was arrested.
20 And you're going to react. You're going to react
21 when you hear the words, see the pictures and hear the phrases
22 that were used. And you know what you may do? You may gasp.
23 You may turn away. You may get sick to your stomach. You may
24 get scared, and you may get angry, and when Mr. Ricco spoke to
25 you earlier before lunch and he said: Trial? Trial? You may
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1 hear some things and you may want to jump right over this rail
2 and get to us right now. And I'm telling you that's going to
3 happen.
4 You're going to feel that way. You're going to have
5 a normal reaction to seeing and hearing the most horrible
6 devastation that happened in August of 1998. But I need --
7 you're allowed to react, you know. No one can tell you how to
8 feel. No one can tell you what to think about. But we can
9 ask you just to withhold were your judgment. We can ask you
10 to remember that it is not just how you feel in February, but
11 it's going to be February, March all the way until the end,
12 until the case is through, you have to withhold your judgment
13 in this case. You're going to see and hear things that are
14 going to make you shiver.
15 You know, I'm telling you and I want to remember,
16 this moment now, okay, when you get that reaction, I want you
17 to remember to say to myself: Oh, I have to remember to just
18 back up, just to withhold. Just remember what we're dealing
19 with here, because you're going to hear the government is
20 going to present witnesses that are going to say that that guy
21 sitting right there, KK, wished Americans had been killed,
22 instead of Tanzanians. You're going to hear the government
23 say that.
24 You're going to hear the government witness get up
25 and testify that he said: I'm not sorry for it. You're going
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1 to hear them get up and say: I would consider doing it again.
2 That's going to make you at that point, you want to jump up,
3 get over and say: How could you say that? How could you do
4 that? How could you sit here and ask me to just not throw my
5 hands up and say, forget about it?
6 Well, as of October 5th of 1999, from that point on
7 that's when, October 5th to October 7th, that's when Mr.
8 Mohamed was arrested and he was questioned. Withhold your
9 judgment.
10 But you know what you can do when you hear all these
11 terrible things, when you hear what he said, when you hear
12 what his reaction was, when you hear what he felt? You need
13 to ask yourselves why? Why? Because why people do certain
14 things matters. Why they act a certain way matters and a
15 number of you even spoke about it during the voir dire portion
16 of the trial.
17 I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, KK Mohamed
18 acted purely out of principle. He acted purely out of deep,
19 deep religious beliefs, out of deep philosophical convictions
20 out of his understanding of the Koran, out of the fact that
21 his interpretation of the Koran and of Islam may be extreme,
22 but it's his. He believes it. And let me tell you something
23 else: It is also a belief held by millions of other people
24 around this world.
25 That's what he did, act. That's why he said those
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1 things because of what he believed, what he felt, what he
2 thought what he learned about and what he knew. Why didn't he
3 act? In other words, why didn't he do this bomb? He didn't
4 act out of greed. He didn't act to make any money. He didn't
5 act out of lust, out of personal ambition, out of personal
6 gain, out of any attempt for him to gain power in the world
7 organization, for him to move up within any kind of an
8 organization. He didn't do that. He didn't in any way act
9 out of a sense to move up the ladder of the organization or do
10 anything for purely personal gain.
11 Now, I think there is a hierarchy of evil in this
12 world, you know, and people who act out of principle, out of
13 religious convictions or religious beliefs, should they be
14 judged the same way as someone who is completely acting out of
15 greed or money or power? Is there a hierarchy of evil? Is
16 there a way that you judge people and acts differently
17 depending on why one does something?
18 Now, let's be very clear. Let's move the mic here so
19 you can be very clear. I am not telling you I agree with what
20 he did. I am not telling you that I agree with his beliefs or
21 his understanding or his interpretation of Islam. I am not
22 telling you that I am trying to justify what he did. I am not
23 trying to excuse what he did. I am not.
24 I am only, only trying to explain. I, David Stern
25 and David Ruhnke, we are three lawyers representing KK
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1 Mohamed. No one sitting at that table is agreeing, is
2 justifying, is excusing what happened.
3 When I talk to you about a hiearchy of evil or deep
4 philosophical beliefs, I'm just trying to explain it. I'm
5 trying to clarify it, and I'm trying to just ask you to
6 individualize the evidence and the conduct against individual
7 people who are charged with very specific crime. So if you
8 believe that someone acts out of principle or deeply held
9 religious or political beliefs, then it shouldn't surprise you
10 if they don't feel sorry for what they did. It shouldn't --
11 THE COURT: Again, I remind the jury that some of the
12 issues which you are hearing, which may be very pertinent if
13 and when the question of punishment comes before you, are not
14 pertinent with respect to whether or not the evidence in this
15 case will prove beyond a reasonable doubt what a particular
16 defendant did, providing you find that he did it
17 intentionally, voluntarily, willfully, and it's a distinction
18 which should not be confused.
19 Please proceed.
20 MR. SCHNEIDER: Thank you, your Honor.
21 THE COURT: Please proceed in accordance with the
22 statements that I've just made.
23 MR. SCHNEIDER: Always, your Honor.
24 The reason I'm telling you this, the reason I'm
25 talking about hierarchy of evil, and what you have to be
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1 concerned about, is because during the guilt phase, during the
2 first phase that the Judge is talking about, you're going to
3 hear witnesses talk about statements that were made by Mr.
4 Mohamed, and that's going to be in the guilt phase, in the
5 guilt first portion of this case. So it's relevant for you
6 now to know what his motivations were, because you're going to
7 hear about it in the guilt phase of the case, and you're going
8 to know about it.
9 So it may be relevant later for the penalty phase,
10 but you're going to hear about it in the guilt phase, from the
11 government's own witnesses, and don't forget about it. So
12 that's why I need to tell you about it now, because, remember,
13 I'm asking you, okay, you can react when you hear things that
14 you don't like or see things you don't like, but withhold
15 judgment. That's why it's relevant for the guilt phase of
16 this case against that man right there.
17 On October 5th when KK was taken into custody in
18 South Africa, which you'll hear a little bit about, he was
19 questioned for a few days, the 5th, the 6th, the 7th, portions
20 of those days, and when he was questioned really the only
21 promise that was made by the agents was that the Judge and the
22 prosecutors would be informed of any cooperation, any
23 information he may give to them. Those are the only deals
24 that were made. There was really no other deals or promises
25 made to him. And he spoke to them from the 5th, the 6th, the
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1 7th, broken down over a few periods of during those times.
2 Now, I do need to talk to you a little bit about the
3 historical background or perspective of the case and where KK
4 fits in, because you know this indictment talks about years
5 and years of activity. This indictment talks about hundreds
6 and hundreds of miles of different places all over the world.
7 So you have to know -- I suggest you should know where he fits
8 into the world and what make him who he was back years and
9 years ago.
10 He's 27 years old now. He was born in 1973 in a tiny
11 island called Pemba. It's right off Tanzania. Now it's so
12 tiny that this morning when Mr. Butler had the map flashed on
13 your screens of Tanzania, of Kenya, of Africa, and you all
14 were able to see it, it's not even there. That's how tiny.
15 It doesn't even exist on that particular map that the
16 government showed you. That's where he was born.
17 He'd never been to this country until the agents
18 brought him here. His father passed away when he was a very
19 young boy. He has three brothers, three sisters. He is one
20 of a twin, he has a twin sister, and he has a number of half
21 brothers and sisters as well.
22 Now, that's 1973 in this very tiny island of Pemba.
23 A number of years later, 1978, the communists took over
24 Afghanistan, okay. He's five years old at the time. The
25 communists take over Afghanistan by force. They become the
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1 ruling party in Afghanistan.
2 Sometimes in 1979 freedom fighters called Afghan muja
3 hadin or resistance fighters they declare jihad, a word that
4 you heard about on Mr. Butler's opening, they declared jihad
5 against the Communist government in Afghanistan.
6 In the end of 1979, the Russians, the communist
7 government of the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the
8 mujadin declared war against the Russians.
9 Now, you know, ten to 3. You've been here since a
10 quarter to 10. It's hot, or at least I'm hot, it's -- worried
11 about the snow. We heard a lot of lawyers talking. You heard
12 a lot of information. I'm sure you tried hard, and I hope you
13 are trying now to listen to all of it, but I know it's hard.
14 I know you want to get out of here. I know a lot of what I'm
15 saying is going like, you know, kind of going away.
16 And I know that because I know what it's like to sit
17 and listen as Mr. Ricco said, to lawyers talking at you. I'm
18 trying not to talk at you. I'm trying to tell you what it's
19 about when someone charged right there and how he fits into
20 the world, because the government brought these charges of a
21 worldwide conspiracy, so I need to try to put him in a
22 perspective of the worldwide events that molded him, that
23 affected him, that will affect you in deciding this case, the
24 guilt part of this case.
25 So he goes to school in Pemba, enters primary school
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1 when he's 7 years old. Now, this is a relatively significant
2 time. 1984 when he's 11 years old, thousands and thousands of
3 young Arab men flock to Afghanistan. They can't wait to get
4 there. They can't wait to get there to be trained. They
5 can't wait there to fight. They can't -- it's like kind of
6 like a rite of passage for a young Arab Muslim man to go to
7 Afghanistan during this period, because they want to go to
8 fight to help their brothers and sisters who are being
9 oppressed under the Communist regime.
10 And the USSR, the Soviet Union, backed that Communist
11 government. And you know what? You know who backed the Arab
12 freedom fighters? United States. United States. We
13 supported the Arab resistance in 1984 in Afghanistan. We, the
14 United States, supported the training in Afghanistan. We,
15 United States, supported the fighting in Afghanistan. We
16 didn't just support it by having some politicians getting up
17 there and say, we think it's a good thing. We gave them guns.
18 We, you, them, everybody gave them guns to fight there in
19 Afghanistan, these training camps that the government has
20 talked to you about.
21 Sometime in '89 or '90 a number of years later, KK
22 attends secondary school in the island where he lived. And
23 during that same year that's when the Soviet Union, they got
24 beat, they're out, they're gone. Later the next year, KK
25 moves to Dar-es-Salaam, that little tiny island off Pemba,
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1 with his family moves to Dar-es-Salaam, which is a bigger city
2 in Tanzania, and he lives with his brother and his family and
3 he works in his brother's shop.
4 His brother owns a little store, a little store in
5 Sar-es-Salaam and KK works there in 1990. 1991, the very
6 beginning, that's when the Gulf War. Mr. Butler spoke to you
7 about the Gulf War. Iraq had invaded. They were defeated,
8 and then the US, we went into Saudi Arabia.
9 That's when everything began to churn, and gets
10 involved with Saudi Arabia being the holy place and two holy
11 sites and things of that nature.
12 Well, in the early '90s there was tribal warfare in
13 Somalia and hundreds of thousands of people died because of
14 famine, because of the tribal wars in the early '90s. This is
15 the context. This is the world under which he is growing up,
16 someone who is a Muslim, someone who is learning about his
17 life, his world, and the world around him.
18 So you have the issues in Bosnia in 1991 and 1992 in
19 the end of '92 the US sends, I think they were called a
20 humanitarian mission to Somalia. '93, that's when the US
21 planes bombed Somalia, and that's when you had some issues
22 regarding other people going there to fight.
23 Now, that's kind of all kind of a background to what
24 led KK to certain activities in 1994. It gives you the
25 context of who he is in the world. In 1994 he decides to
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1 exercise his rite of passage as someone who studies Islam,
2 someone who was brought up in a Muslim world, and he decides
3 to go to Afghanistan and he goes to Afghanistan to learn to
4 help others; to see what he can do to help his Muslim brothers
5 and sisters around the world, and, if necessary, use armed
6 struggle.
7 Make no mistake about it. I am not saying he's just
8 out there as some preacher preaching the good of the rest of
9 the world. He went there to see whatever he could do, armed
10 struggle if necessary. And he was trained for a number of
11 months, about nine or ten months, in some light weapons there.
12 And he also studied. He had religious studies in this
13 Afghanistan training camp that the government talked about.
14 He had religious studies. You know what else did there? He
15 played volleyball. He played soccer.
16 And there were thousands of others that were trained
17 over the years during the time he was there and times he was
18 not there. In fact, this camp is not just like a very
19 discrete camp that they have very specific training for a
20 specific mission, they go out and they commit all these
21 crimes. There is sometimes that there was -- you know why
22 there was no training going on during the camp when he was
23 there? Because they didn't even have any facilities. They
24 didn't have the weapons. They didn't have what was necessary
25 for training to be done.
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1 So at this time during his training in 1994 in these
2 Afghanistan camps he never even heard of Usama Bin Laden, he
3 never heard of him, never new of him,didn't know anything
4 about him. He heard of other people talking about him.
5 In 1995 he left the camp and he went back to live in
6 Dar-es-Salaam. Now, this is interesting. When he left the
7 camp he was told to leave a contact number in case we need you
8 for something, if it is necessary for you to become a soldier
9 in the war against whoever. Leave a number we could reach
10 you. Okay?
11 He did. He left a number and address where he could
12 be reached. He was never called. Never a letter. Never a
13 communication. No one ever said: We need you for '94, 95,
14 '96 and '97. There was no such contact at all. Don't call
15 us, we will call you. They never called him. They never
16 needed him. He was never part of any plan.
17 In 1995 when he went back to Dar-es-Salaam. He lived
18 there with his brother and he continued to live with his
19 brother, his brother's family and he worked there with him.
20 '96, his brother lost the shop, but he still continued to live
21 with his brother. '97, he still lived with his brother and
22 the family but when his brother had to move to London for
23 whatever reason, for business reasons, so he began to live
24 with other members of his family.
25 For '95, '96 and '97 he just went about his life.
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1 There was no contact with anyone, no bombs, no discussions, no
2 Bin Laden, no al Qaeda. There was nothing, no training,
3 nobody contacted him, nothing. He was working. He was
4 studying. He was living with his family. And that's what he
5 did.
6 In 19'97 he took a trip to Mombasa, a city in Kenya,
7 not Nairobi. Mombasa is a different city. He went there. He
8 traveled. He met some people. He discussed Islam with other
9 people, and he prayed at different locations. He had no
10 discussions no nothing, no meetings with Bin Laden, nothing to
11 do with al Qaeda, no bombing. That's '97.
12 He goes again sometime in '97 because he goes to
13 Mombasa. He's only in Mombasa for a couple of weeks. He
14 comes back to Mombasa. When he comes back from Mombasa,
15 again, he just travels. He met some people. He met some
16 friends. He was there and he discussed Islam with others. He
17 was there for maybe a month or two. No Bin Laden, no al
18 Qaeda, no bombings, nothing.
19 '97, he goes to Somalia. Now, these are all, you
20 know, you'll see them from the map in terms of the trips that
21 he makes, goes to Somalia, and the first time he went there to
22 see if he could help anybody in Somalia because there was a
23 terrible, terrible situation there. He was told that there
24 were tribal wars going on there, that he went to see if he
25 could help.
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1 When he was there he showed others about the little
2 bit he had learned running light weapons at the training camp
3 in Afghanistan in 1994. There was no fighting of any kind in
4 Somalia in '97 that he was involved in. Nothing whatsoever.
5 He went back to Dar-es-Salaam to live there.
6 He went back to Somalia a second time in '97, again,
7 to try to help. Not only was there no fighting there. There
8 was no training in Somalia during this time, no Bin Laden, no
9 al Qaeda, nothing. He went to Mombasa in '98 for a third time
10 and again he stayed there for a while, and then went back to
11 Dar-es-Salaam.
12 Now, in the very beginning of '98 he made efforts to
13 try to get a passport so he can go visit his brother in
14 London. And he made those efforts, and he used a fake or
15 tried to use fake information, fake identification. And this
16 is before he was ever contacted by anybody for any bomb, for
17 any plan, any mission, anything like that. He did that
18 because in order to get the necessary documents you needed
19 other proof that he didn't have. So he did that, again, using
20 his own initiative to try to go and get the information that
21 he needed.
22 Now, finally, in March or April of 1998, years after
23 he was trained in Afghanistan, years after studying Islam, and
24 years after discussing what his life was going to be about in
25 the world of Islamic religion, something specific happened.
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1 Somebody came to him, a friend came to him and said: You want
2 to get involved in a jihad job? And right away KK said: Yes.
3 The person never said: We want you to do a bomb. The person
4 never said what it is we want you to do, where we want you to
5 do it, when we want you to do it, why you should do it.
6 Nothing, not even, and as Mr. Butler said, jihad has many
7 different meetings, some illegal, some not illegal some
8 extremist, some not extremist.
9 So someone asked him do you want to do a jihad job.
10 He said yes without knowing anything more about what it
11 entailed, didn't ask why, nothing at all. In April of '98 he
12 is told to rent a little apartment in an area of Tanzania. He
13 obeys that directive. He is given money to pay for it. Not
14 his own. He pays with someone else's money. He uses his own
15 name to rent that apartment, to rent that place.
16 Now is that the work of a clever terrorist? Is that
17 the work of someone who is trying to hide what he's doing
18 because he knows what he's doing is illegal and improper? And
19 is that the work of someone who is sophisticated? Or is that
20 the work of someone who just obeys when he's told to do
21 something, and is at the lowest very rung of the totem pole or
22 the ladder?
23 That's how someone acts when he rents the apartment
24 with someone else's money and uses his own name. For that
25 month, April and May, he and this other person and their
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1 family move into this place together.
2 Now, I'm going to try not to use names. I'm just
3 going to try to refer to people as what their roles were, so I
4 hope it will make more sense for you, and you won't just be
5 looking out there like all these different names that are
6 unfamiliar to you.
7 Sometime in June he is told to buy a truck. Mr.
8 Butler's right. He was told to buy a particular kind of
9 truck. He was never told why to buy the truck. He never
10 asked: Why do you want the truck? He's told to buy a truck.
11 What does he do? He obeys. He buys the truck. With his
12 money? No. Somebody, the person who told him to buy the
13 truck gave him the money to buy the truck.
14 Again, he uses his own name and the government has
15 the receipt. The government is going to show you the
16 evidence. He has the receipt that he signed his own name for
17 that truck. Sometime later in June, this is when it begins to
18 get a little hairy. Others, two others begin to bring TNT
19 dynamite bomb stuff into the place and they begin to store it
20 there.
21 To show how you knowledgeable he is and how much
22 training he received when he was in Afghanistan in the camps
23 he said: What is that? What is that? He was told. So he
24 knew. I'm not saying he didn't know. I'm not saying he was
25 an unwitting participant. I'm saying he was only told
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1 whatever he needed to be told at the very last minute because
2 he had no say in what was going to happen in terms of future
3 steps.
4 So he didn't know where the TNT came from. He didn't
5 know who bought it. He just knows that these two people
6 bought it. And he began to store it. And then he is no
7 dummy. He may be used by the higher up, but he's not a dumb
8 young man. He knew sounds like we're probably making a bomb
9 here. He knew it. We're not backing away from the evidence.
10 We're not backing away from the truth now. But he didn't know
11 the location. He didn't know the time. He didn't know the
12 purpose at any point in June of '98.
13 Let's move on a little bit, June-July of '98. We're
14 getting now about a month or two before the bombing. He's
15 told to rent a different house because the first house wasn't
16 good. He obeys. He goes with the leader, the person who is
17 kind of describing things, instructing him, giving him the
18 money, and he goes, and this other person is the one who
19 begins to negotiate with the owner of the apartment or the
20 house for the rent. The other person does the negotiating.
21 The other person actually physically gives KK the money and
22 tells KK: Hand it to him. So KK is the one who physically
23 hands the money. And you know what KK does? He signs the
24 document himself with his own name.
25 Well, what does the leader do? The person who gives
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1 him the money, the person who tells him what he's supposed to
2 do, the person who tells him that we need a different house
3 the person who negotiates, he witnesses the transfer; and he
4 signs a name, not his own name, he signs an alias, a fake
5 name.
6 So this guy the guy who pays the money, the guy who
7 gives it, who transfers it, signs his own name and the guy who
8 is the leader, the guy who is the organizer, the one who
9 directly is in charge of what has to be done, he's there, he
10 negotiates and he signs an alias, at that time, at that place.
11 So all he does is obey what he's told to do and this
12 truck that he bought was used to carry bomb materials back and
13 forth. Make no mistake about it, it was used. He knew it.
14 He saw it. He knew what was going on. He knew where it came
15 from. He never knew who paid for it or how it was paid for,
16 but he did see it at that time.
17 And at some point about a week or so before the
18 bombing, another individual comes and delivers a truck to the
19 place and leaves the truck there. That truck had already been
20 altered. It had been made specially so that the bomb
21 materials can be used around the truck. So it was altered
22 even before it got to the house. So somebody else must have
23 altered it. It was driven by somebody else, never by him, the
24 Subaru Suzuki truck he bought. He doesn't even know how to
25 drive. He's never driven that car or truck. He doesn't know
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1 how to drive. There is this expert, someone who you really
2 need to do all of this work in Tanzania.
3 So the truck is delivered already altered. And, by
4 the way, the truck has a padlock on the back. He never had a
5 key to that padlock. He never had access to it, unless
6 somebody else opened it and directed him to go in and bring
7 this or bring things out.
8 Also, a week before the bombing, the technical expert
9 comes. We'll call him the bomb maker, the engineer, the
10 organizer, the one who knew how to make the bomb, the one who
11 knew how to set the bomb, the one who organized it, the one
12 who knew how to grind the TNT. Mr. Butler says that KK
13 Mohamed grinded TNT. Yes, he did, he's right. But he did it
14 after the bomb maker told him, grind the TNT. This is how you
15 do it. This is what you should do.
16 The bomb maker oversaw all of the people who worked
17 on this and told them what had to be done, and how to do it.
18 And the bomb maker was so expert in this he knew exactly what
19 he had to do. He never used a map. He never used a book. He
20 never used a diagram. He just did it because he is the
21 expert.
22 And at that point KK still doesn't know the target of
23 the bomb. He don't know when, he doesn't know where, he
24 doesn't know why. This is a week before the bomb. Also, a
25 week before the bomb, he goes and he gets a visa to go to
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1 Yemen.
2 Now, sometime after the bomb maker, the expert,
3 comes, someone else is brought to the house. Let's call him
4 the suicide truck driver, because he's the one that's going to
5 be his job to drive the bomb laden truck into the embassy,
6 push a button when it gets there and have it blow up.
7 He helps the bomb maker. He helps, he -- this is the
8 person who does the truck driving, the suicide driver. He
9 helps the bomb maker. They work closely together. It take
10 days and days for them to complete making the bomb, putting
11 wires together, detonators, distributors. In fact, at this
12 point when they bring the cylinders, what does KK say with all
13 of his training and experience in Afghanistan? What are
14 those? What is that? And someone has to tell him those are
15 the cylinders for the bomb.
16 Let's be clear, I am not saying he didn't grind. I
17 am not saying he didn't help carry in the bomb-making
18 materials into the truck. He obeyed his orders. He obeyed
19 his directions. He did what was told. Anybody, anybody could
20 have done what he did then.
21 At that point, even as he's carrying the stuff into
22 the bomb laden truck, as he's bringing them in, he still
23 doesn't know the target. He still doesn't know when. He
24 still doesn't know why. And he's acting because this is what
25 he's told to do.
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1 Now, a few days before the bomb goes off, the leader,
2 the money man, the guy who gave him more money to always buy
3 things and rent things, the planner, he leaves. He gets out.
4 The bomb isn't even finished yet and the leader is gone. He
5 high tails it out into the wings, and he gives money to KK and
6 said, when it's time for you to leave, here's the money for
7 you.
8 He doesn't even have his money to go and, by the way,
9 the organization never even gave him any kind of a fake
10 passport. They had the ability to make fake identification
11 make fake passports. They had part of the organization that
12 was their expertise. Nobody in this organization, in this
13 cell, in this group, in this mission, no one gave him any kind
14 of identification or passport to leave to use or gave him any
15 kind of a safe route, a safe trip or anything like that.
16 Whatever he did, he did on his own after they all left and
17 left him there on his own to fend for himself.
18 Some of the other people began to leave a couple of
19 days before. Then the bomb expert leaves as well. So who's
20 left? Three days, three days, the bomb is now complete. The
21 bomb maker's going, everybody gone, only people left KK and
22 the suicide driver.
23 Now, Mr. Butler said that you know he stayed there
24 because he was going to help the driver and help, you know,
25 and clean up afterwards. Well, he was there because he was
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1 the only one who spoke Swahili in that land of Tanzania.
2 Swahili was the dominant language that was spoken by the
3 people, so if anybody came to the house the truck driver, who
4 was there alone, who didn't speak the language, couldn't have
5 dealt with anything, couldn't have said anything, couldn't
6 have sent people away, couldn't have deflected the suspicion
7 from the house. He's got to be there because he is the only
8 one who spoke Swahili, and he was the only one, beside the
9 suicide driver, who was expendable, who was replaceable, who
10 was not necessary for the operation. The operation was about
11 to be completed. It didn't matter if they left him there to
12 do what he had to do.
13 Now, this is kind of like almost a Keystone Kops
14 routine what happens next. A couple of days before the bomb
15 goes off, the truck, because it's so heavy with the bomb,
16 sinks. It just kind of like goes down in the sand. And the
17 driver comes out and sees it, and he says: Whoa, what's this?
18 What's going to be now? We have a truck, a bomb, a bomb a
19 giant bomb that's going to be there, and the truck just kind
20 of goes down.
21 They don't know what to do this. This guy he's not
22 the planner. He's not the leader. He doesn't know what to
23 do. He doesn't have the money. He has no idea what to do.
24 He sits there. What do they do? They try to dig it out.
25 They're not successful. They leave it there and do nothing.
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1 You have a bomb truck sitting in a, near a red near a
2 house, sunk in the sand. They do nothing about it because he
3 has no idea what to do. He doesn't even know where it's
4 supposed to go, when it's supposed to go, how it's to be. He
5 don't know. He's a nobody. He's a nothing. So they just sit
6 there and let the truck sit in the sunken sand.
7 A day or so later, suicide driver gets a phone call
8 on a cell phone and it turns out -- I'm sorry -- gets a phone
9 call on a cell phone, excuse me, pardon me.
10 (Pause)
11 And he's no dummy, the driver. The driver says to
12 the people who are talking to him: Er, by the way, truck is
13 stuck in the sand and I need a little help here. And at that
14 point people on the phone say to him: You know what? Go get
15 a second truck and that second truck can be used to pull the
16 other truck out of the sand if necessary.
17 Now, he didn't think of that. He didn't take any
18 action for the two or three days or two days that the truck
19 was sitting in the sand. He did nothing. He had no idea what
20 to do. He had no resources to do anything. He had no
21 initiative. Had he no ideas, no plans, no ability to do
22 anything. So they sat there and they waited and luckily,
23 lucky for them, unlucky for the rest of the world, that
24 somebody called up and said: Get a second truck.
25 By the way, this cell phone that was used he never
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1 even had access to the cell phone. One of the people had
2 access to the cell phone. When he left, he gave it to the
3 suicide driver that he used. He wasn't allowed to use it. He
4 made one phone call one time in the time he was there on that
5 cell phone to call his family to tell his nephew to come to
6 the house, to tell his sister to tell his nephew to come to
7 the house to get something.
8 Now, August 7, 1998, the day that brought us here.
9 He gets a bus ticket. He's told that's the time it's supposed
10 to happen. He goes. He rents a truck with the money that had
11 been given to him by the leader. And he gets a driver of the
12 other truck, because he didn't drive it, he doesn't know how
13 to drive a truck of any kind.
14 At that point, sometime in the morning, the suicide
15 driver gets in the truck, the bomb-laden truck, and tests it,
16 see if it could work, and they get it out. At that point KK
17 gets in the truck with the suicide bomber in the passengers
18 seat. Driving a little bit fast, goes with him a little bit
19 past the house to a place called Urur Road. There is an
20 intersection there. You'll see it on some maps or evidence
21 during the government's presentation.
22 KK gets out. Before this particular run, before this
23 drive on August 7th, there had been no dry run so to speak.
24 There had been discussions as to what route should be taken
25 with KK. There was no discussion as to where we should drive,
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1 when we should drive, how fast, what route to take, who's
2 going to do it. There were no discussions at all ever by him
3 on that day regarding the route or the truck was going to
4 happen.
5 So he gets out, and at that point the reason he gets
6 out because he's of no use to the driver. You know why? He
7 doesn't even know where the embassy is. He had never been to
8 the embassy in his life. He had never seen the embassy
9 before. He had no special knowledge of the embassy or the
10 roads or the routes or the best way to go.
11 He just was there to make sure the truck was there
12 with the driver, and that he spoke Swahili. That was it. He
13 gets out of the truck. He doesn't drive it part of the way to
14 make sure the guy goes down. He gets out in the very
15 beginning and miles away, is when the truck goes to the
16 embassy. He pays the rental driver and that guy goes on his
17 way. And then he sits in the house.
18 He never hears the blast. He never hears the
19 explosion. He learns about it on the radio. And at some
20 point he calls his nephew. Now, this is the kind of guy
21 you're talking about, okay? This is just a world terrorist
22 bomb crazy person. He calls his nephew and tells his nephew,
23 I need you to come to the house and in case you rent the house
24 you should give to my mother and I have some items that I want
25 to give to you and to give to my sister. What are those
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1 items? A mattress, some kitchen items, curtains, a child's
2 toilet seat, and carpets.
3 And I won't forget, a grinding thing, the thing that
4 was used for grinding the TNT. So when the government says
5 that he was there to clean up afterwards, that he was there to
6 get rid of the evidence, no, no. He was there just to finish
7 up and he gave the grinding to his family to give to his
8 mother with the children's toilet seat and the carpets.
9 That's the kind of simplistic man he is. That's the kind of
10 that's where he comes from, island of Pemba. He's in this
11 world of Islamic resistance, so what he thinks about the bomb
12 is giving some of these pieces of property to his family.
13 (Continued on next page)
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1 MR. SCHNEIDER: (Continued) Now, the day after the
2 bombing he does use in fact false identification that he had
3 to leave, and he takes a bus or train, he does leave, and he
4 goes away. He travels to South Africa. When he traveled to
5 South Africa, he traveled alone. He did not use any of the
6 identification, passport or visa or anything supplied by any
7 organization.
8 He arrived in Capetown a couple of days later and he
9 got a job -- as a trainer? No. Did he get a job in an
10 Islamic mission to do any kind of jihad? No. He got a job at
11 Burger World. Burger World, flipping burgers. In 1998,
12 September of 1998. That's how he spent his life. He went to
13 work every day. He studied his religion. In fact, after
14 about a month or so he moved into his boss's house with his
15 boss's family. That's where he lived. That's the kind of
16 life he lived after this happened.
17 This is the kind of guy you're talking about, this
18 expendable, nonessential, unnecessary pawn in this whole
19 event.
20 When he lived there, he just went to work every day.
21 He studied. In fact, he even tutored his boss's wife and his
22 boss's son in the Koran. He never had any meetings, he never
23 got any letters, he didn't get any calls. He had nothing
24 connected to any of these past activities or anticipated
25 future activities.
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1 This is interesting. Before he left Tanzania, he was
2 given three phone numbers by one of the other members there
3 that were with him, who said in case he needed help he should
4 use one of these three numbers to call. Almost a year later,
5 in June 1999, he makes a phone call, somebody answers, and --
6 this highly organized mission, this extremely intelligent,
7 financially secure terrorist organization. He makes a phone
8 call and then when the guy answers, the phone call is cut off.
9 The guy answered the phone, the 20 rands on the phone card run
10 out, that's it, never calls back, person doesn't call him
11 back, that's the end of that. He says OK, let me try the
12 second number, not because he needed help, just to see. He
13 calls a second number, the machine answers, wrong number. OK,
14 let me try the third number. He tried the third number. It
15 never worked. He is left out in the cold, fend for yourself.
16 The three numbers he was given, nobody there for him at any
17 point in time.
18 When he is in South Africa, he applies for political
19 asylum under false identification. October 5 he is arrested
20 and questioned by agents. He speaks to them the 5th, the 6th,
21 and the 7th.
22 This Tanzanian bombing, it required concerted,
23 concentrated, coordinated effort by a number of different,
24 specialized people. The government has shown you, they showed
25 you in their opening and they will show you during their
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1 presentation of evidence the role that K.K. Mohamed played.
2 They will show you that the role that he played was purely,
3 merely a pawn in this much greater, larger, this much more
4 devious, worldwide, chess-game conspiracy. But all they will
5 show you is that he was a willing participant, someone who was
6 willing to do what he was told to do. The leaders, the higher
7 ups, the policy makers, people like that in these kinds of
8 organizations, they manage to insulate themselves, they manage
9 to protect themselves, and they manage to expose, to sacrifice
10 and to just leave out in the cold the people at the bottom,
11 the workers, the ones who don't matter.
12 When I spoke to you earlier about a hierarchy of evil
13 and I talked to you about different motives in that hierarchy
14 of evil? Well, what about evil people versus evil deeds? I
15 need you to look over at K.K. Mohamed, OK. He is not, he is
16 not, the government will not be able to prove that he is an
17 evil person. They will prove, I suggest to you, that he
18 participated in an evil act, just because the higher ups are
19 prepared to sacrifice this pawn. We are asking you after the
20 government's evidence not to sacrifice this pawn. He is not
21 an evil person, recognizing evil as evil. Thank you.
22 THE COURT: Thank you. Mr. Cohn on behalf of
23 Al-'Owhali.
24 MR. COHN: Your Honor, at this time Mr. Al-'Owhali
25 relies on the right to put the government to its proof and
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1 waives opening.
2 THE COURT: Very well. Al-'Owhali waives opening.
3 Ladies and gentlemen, you recall I told you that was a right
4 and an option available to a defendant.
5 Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to call it a day.
6 Couple of things.
7 There is certainly going to be a lot of press
8 tomorrow or this evening about the opening of this trial.
9 Please remember what I said about discipline, and please don't
10 read it, don't watch it.
11 Please allow time so that you are not delayed by the
12 weather tomorrow morning, and follow the same timetable with
13 the marshals that you followed today.
14 Have a good evening, and we will see you tomorrow.
15 (Jury excused)
16 THE COURT: We will take a 10-minute recess, and then
17 I will see counsel and the reporter in the robing room to take
18 up the matters that we discussed earlier, and we are adjourned
19 for that purpose.
20 MR. WILFORD: Excuse me, your Honor. There is
21 something that I would also like to take up in the robing
22 room.
23 MR. RUHNKE: Your Honor, you do not require our
24 clients any longer?
25 THE COURT: I do not need the clients. I understand
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1 we will be taking up legal issues. The clients may be there
2 but are not required.
3 (Recess)
4 (Pages 129 through 157 sealed)
5 (Proceedings adjourned until Tuesday, 10:00 a.m.,
6 February, 6, 2001)
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