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Life sentence for U.S. embassy bombers

Mohamed Odeh's attorneys, Anthony Ricco, left, and Edward Wilford, speak to reporters after the sentencing.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A judge Thursday imposed life sentences against the four men convicted in the only U.S. trial to date against followers of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 28-year-old Tanzanian, had been found guilty of carrying out the truck bomb attack at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998, and murdering the 11 people who died there. Mohamed rented the house where the bomb was assembled and TNT was ground for it.

Also sentenced were Mohamed al-'Owhali and Mohamed Odeh, the two men with a hands-on role in the suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya on the same day as the Tanzania attack. They were convicted of murdering the 213 people killed in that blast. Al-'Owhali is a 24-year-old Saudi and Odeh is a 36-year-old Jordanian.

Wadih el Hage, a 41-year-old naturalized American of Lebanese descent, was also sentenced to life. He is a longtime aide to bin Laden. El Hage was convicted of taking part in a conspiracy to kill Americans and to destroy U.S. property. He left Kenya a year before the bombings and was never accused of having a direct role in the attacks.

EXTRA INFORMATION Case file: The U.S. embassy bombings trials    MORE STORIES Jurors: Most of panel favored death for two defendants  Embassy bombings trial revealed links to bin Laden    RESOURCES Transcript of sentencing hearing U.S. v. Osama bin Laden  FindLaw document (PDF format)

"Today's sentence sends a message," said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. "The United States will hunt terrorists down and will make them pay the price for their evil acts of terrorism."

At the sentencing, Odeh, speaking Arabic, said: "To Allah we belong and to him we return. May God help me in my calamity and replace it with goodness. On God I rely and in him I put my trust."

Security was tighter than usual at the U.S. District Courthouse in Manhattan for the sentencing of the men convicted in the only U.S. trial to date against followers of bin Laden. Additional checkpoints and more U.S. marshals were added outside the courthouse, and pedestrian access around the block had been restricted.

U.S. officials believe bin Laden masterminded the September 11 attacks that brought down the World Trade Center.

Appeal will be filed, attorney says

Anthony Ricco, Odeh's attorney, said an appeal would be made and attorneys will be "litigating the issues we raised here." Of the trial, Ricco said that "it sends a more important message to our country, that we are a country of laws."

The nearly simultaneous embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured another 4,500 people.

Five Americans spoke at the sentencing hearing, all asking U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand to impose a maximum sentence. Susan Hirsch, whose Kenyan husband died in Tanzania, said: "There is nothing that you the judge or the state can do to these individuals to soothe the sorrow."

Howard Kaveler, whose wife Prabhi worked with him at the Kenya embassy and died, called the defendants "cowardly infidels" whose "minds and bodies should rot in prison."

Frank Pressley, who said his life has been a series of operations and nightmares since he survived the Kenyan blast three years ago, said: "These people need to be put away forever."

The four defendants originally were to be convicted September 19, but that was delayed by the World Trade Center attacks.

Mohamed and al-'Owhali could have been sentenced to death, but the jury last summer opted to recommend life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jury rejected death penalty calls

Mohamed al-'Owhali

Al-'Owhali, a 24-year-old Saudi, and Odeh, a 36-year-old Jordanian, were found guilty of carrying out the first blast in Nairobi, Kenya, and murdering the 213 people who died in it.

Trial evidence and testimony showed al-'Owhali rode in the bomb truck and fired stun grenades at embassy security guards to maneuver the truck closer to the targeted building. Odeh was a technical adviser to the bombing and an admitted soldier in bin Laden's radical Islamic militant group, al Qaeda.

Mohamed was found guilty of carrying out the second blast, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and murdering the 11 people who died there. Mohamed rented the house where the Tanzania bomb was assembled and ground TNT for the explosive device.

Federal prosecutors sought the death penalty against al-'Owhali and Mohamed, but the jury rejected executions for the two men in separate penalty proceedings for each. The jury's cited reasons for opposing capital punishment included the fear that it would turn the bombers into martyrs and further their terrorist cause. The jury also stated the view that life in prison would be a harsher punishment than death by lethal injection.

Judge Sand had no choice but to sentence al-'Owhali and Mohamed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Sand was expected to sentence Odeh to life in prison as well -- the statutory penalty dictated by the murder counts.

Sand had more flexibility with the fourth man convicted -- el Hage, a 41-year-old naturalized American of Lebanese descent, who faces from 30 years to life behind bars. El Hage, who was a personal secretary to bin Laden when his organization was based in Sudan in the early 1990s, later became a key facilitator of his East Africa cell, sending and receiving messages for the leaders in Afghanistan.

Trial evidence also showed that el Hage used a charity to receive money from bin Laden and to manufacture fake identification cards for his operatives. But el Hage had left Kenya a year before the bombings and was never accused of having a direct role in the attacks.

Like the others, el Hage stood convicted of joining the terrorism conspiracy to kill Americans and to destroy U.S. property. El Hage also was convicted of multiple counts of perjury for lying to cover up his role.

Judge: Frozen assets may aid embassy bombing victims

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed

The three bombers -- al-'Owhali, Odeh, and Mohamed -- all trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s. Odeh was among the al Qaeda operatives who offered military training to Somali tribes opposed to a U.S. troop presence in Somalia in 1993.

Bin Laden was the absent lead defendant, one of 13 indicted fugitives in the case, but a strong presence in the courtroom. His religious decrees, or fatwahs, declaring war on the U.S. and threatening to kill American soldiers and civilians were prime prosecution evidence.

None of the defendants testified during the trial. Only two of them -- Odeh and el Hage -- were expected to speak at their sentencing.

Prosecutors have asked Sand to award $26.3 million in restitution to the victims. At a pre-sentencing hearing held Wednesday, Sand suggested some of the frozen assets linked to suspected terrorists could go to the families of the victims.

The judge agreed with defense attorneys that their clients could not afford to pay restitution. But he also said millions of dollars may be available, thanks to recent attempts by the Bush administration to choke off the funding of al Qaeda and other terror groups.