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 per