Saudi dissident's plea postponed for medical tests

News media arguments on closed hearing delayed

June 19, 1997
Web posted at: 2:08 p.m. EDT (1808 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A medical delay was granted Thursday in the plea bargain case of a Saudi dissident who is expected to admit plotting to kill Americans in Saudi Arabia. In return for a reduced sentence, Hani al-Sayegh is to reveal what he knows about a separate truck bombing last year that killed 19 U.S. airmen.

In requesting the delay, al-Sayegh's attorney, Michael Wildes, said his client was hospitalized Wednesday night after suffering a stress-induced asthma attack.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered medical tests and postponed the hearing for al-Sayegh's anticipated guilty plea until next Wednesday.

Wildes said an FBI SWAT team took his client to a hospital for treatment hours after al-Sayegh was formally indicted on Wednesday. In court on Thursday, the 28-year-old father of two looked calmer than he had the day before.

When he arrived, he smiled and waved to spectators, who were searched twice for weapons and seated behind a bulletproof, Plexiglas shield.

Open or closed hearing?

The medical delay also postponed arguments by CNN and other news organizations that object to the government's request to close portions of the plea hearing to the public and keep details of its agreement with al-Sayegh secret.

A public court session would reveal some of what investigators already know about al-Sayegh and outline what he proposes to tell them about the June 1996 truck bombing at the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He is not charged in that case.

Wildes said keeping details of the plea bargain secret serves both his client and the government.

"My client has a wife and two children who are still in Saudi Arabia," the attorney told CNN in a live interview Thursday morning. "That is something that is very sensitive. I believe that might outweigh the public's right to know."

Murder plot indictment

The crime for which al-Sayegh was to admit guilt -- conspiring to murder Americans abroad -- carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. However, in exchange for telling what he knows about the Khobar Towers bombing, al-Sayegh was expected to receive a lighter sentence.

The indictment says an unidentified terrorist organization paid al-Sayegh a stipend for his work on the conspiracy, which government officials have said never produced an attack on Americans.

Canadian court documents have said he is a member of Saudi Hezbollah, an offshoot of the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah.

Correspondent Terry Frieden contributed to this report.