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Embassy bombings informant's testimony challenged
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A defense attorney sought Tuesday to undermine the credibility of a key government witness in the federal trial of four men accused of taking part in a conspiracy that led to the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Sam Schmidt, attorney for Wadih el Hage, took his turn cross-examining Jamal Al-Fadl, who has identified el Hage as an associate of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi expatriate whom the U.S. government accuses of leading a decade-long conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and destroy U.S. property abroad. The government says the conspiracy culminated in the August 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. El Hage, a 40-year-old naturalized American from Lebanon, is one of four men standing trial for their roles in the bombings.
El Hage has admitted working for bin Laden's companies when they were based in Sudan in the early 1990s, but el Hage maintained that his business activities were legitimate and that he did not engage in violent acts. Al-Fadl, in three previous days of testimony, described el Hage's role in the Sudan office of those companies, and gave a history of bin Laden's companies and his alleged terrorist group, al Qaeda. Schmidt's first point was to elicit further detail from Al-Fadl on bin Laden's business activities -- ranging from trade of agricultural products such as sugar and sesame seeds to importing cement for construction projects. "There was an awful lot of business going on in the bin Laden businesses," Schmidt said. "Yes," Al-Fadl replied, adding that el Hage's U.S. passport made him valuable because it made his business travel easier. Al-Fadl had testified he was aware of el Hage's activities in 1993 and 1994 in Sudan and that he knew him personally. But under questioning from Schmidt, the witness could not say which of el Hage's arms is disabled, which hand he writes with, or what the names of his seven children are. Schmidt also challenged Al-Fadl, who had conveyed in his testimony an encyclopedic knowledge of al Qaeda and its players, to explain why he did not mention el Hage to U.S. officials until a year after he began cooperating with their investigation. "Mr. el Hage didn't leave an impression when it took a year to talk about him to the government," Schmidt said. Throughout his cross-examination Schmidt suggested Al-Fadl gave an incomplete account of his nine years working with bin Laden. Al-Fadl left the group in 1996, fleeing Sudan, after stealing $110,000 from bin Laden. Schmidt portrayed Al-Fadl as traveling from country to country -- Syria, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Lebanon -- shopping for support in building opposition to Sudan's then-ruling National Islamic Front. Under cross-examination Al-Fadl testified that he "hated" the NIF, though he had not previously disclosed his political views as a reason for leaving Sudan. Schmidt also got Al-Fadl to describe conversations he had with Saudi intelligence to "liquidate" his former leader. "You gave the Saudis a proposal to assassinate bin Laden, didn't you?" Schmidt asked. Al-Fadl testified that a plan was discussed, but he did not make clear who originated the idea, which did not go forward. "I don't trust what they want me to do," Al-Fadl told the court. Schmidt pressed Al-Fadl on how he could tell U.S. investigators he had served as bin Laden's "chief of security" for the better part of a year. "That was a lie, wasn't it?" Schmidt asked. "No," Al-Fadl replied, adding that he was a bin Laden bodyguard and did background checks on his associates. Schmidt also asked Al-Fadl if he had overstated his acquaintance with convicted World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, telling investigators he had "trained" with him in Afghan mujahideen camps in the 1980s. Al-Fadl admitted that while they attended one military camp on the Afghaniston-Pakistan border at the same time, they never spoke to each other. Schmidt implied that Al-Fadl had inflated his role with al Qaeda to enter the good graces of U.S. officials, who have made kept him in protective custody in the U.S. for the past five years at a cost of nearly $1 million. Along with el Hage, Mohamed al'Owhali, a 24-year-old Saudi, and Mohamed Odeh, a 35-year-old Jordanian, also are being tried on charges that they took part in the Kenya bombing conspiracy. Khalfan Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian, is being tried on charges that he took part in the Tanzania bombing. RELATED STORIES: Embassy bombing defendant linked to bin Laden RELATED SITES: Links to United States Embassies and Consulates Worldwide |
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