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Embassy bombings trial witness cross-examined

El Hage's collection of business cards show how extensive and diverse his contacts were around the world.

From CNN Producer Phil Hirschkorn

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A former associate of Osama bin Laden testified Monday that he was not aware of accused terrorist Wadih el Hage ever taking a loyalty oath to bin Laden's group, al Qaeda.

El Hage is one of four men on trial for a conspiracy to kill Americans and destroy U.S. property that culminated in the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks federal prosecutors charge were executed by al Qaeda.

CASE FILE Shattered Diplomacy: The U.S. Embassy Bombings Trial An in-depth special report on the trial of four men charged with the embassy bombings Trial reports | Timeline | Key Figures

TRANSCRIPT Testimony of witnesses Al-Ridi and Juma (PDF) CNN March 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden (PDF) Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.   ALSO Questionnaires yield portrait of bombings trial jury (February 8)

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L'Houssaine Kherchtou, a government witness under cross-examination by el Hage's attorney, told the court that some people who worked for bin Laden's companies were not members of al Qaeda. El Hage's defense attorney, Sam Schmidt, has said that his client worked for bin Laden's legitimate commercial interests and did not participate in any violent activity.

Kherchtou said he especially got to know el Hage when they shared a hotel room and then a house in Kenya starting in the fall of 1994.

Since 1992, Kherchtou said, al Qaeda members had been using Nairobi as a transit station from their Khartoum, Sudan, headquarters to Somalia, a Muslim country then plunging into civil unrest. The indictment charges that it was Somali tribes trained by bin Laden that killed U.S. Army Rangers in an October 1993 firefight after U.N. and U.S. forces intervened in Somalia.

Kherchtou, 36, a Moroccan who says he broke with bin Laden in 1996, testified he did not know the other al Qaeda defector who has testified in the trial, Jamal Al-Fadl. When shown his picture, Kherchtou failed to recognize him.

While Al-Fadl testified that bin Laden used a Sudan farm for military training exercises, Kherchtou said he never saw that type of activity there. Instead, bin Laden rode horses there on Fridays and his men played soccer there, Kherchtou said.

Kherchtou testified that in addition to lessons in surveillance, map reading and other operative procedures, every member of al Qaeda had an alias, typically an "Abu" name.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, objecting to this idyllic depiction, told Judge Leonard Sand that one of the men who played soccer there later "blew up the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad," Pakistan. The jury was not in the courtroom for that remark.

Kherchtou's cross-examination will continue for the rest of the day, first under questioning by Schmidt and then by defense attorneys for the other defendants, Mohamed Odeh, Mohamed al-'Owhali, and Khalfan Mohamed.

Last week the witness linked el Hage and Odeh, saying the alleged conspirators knew each other in Kenya and Odeh was among al Qaeda members who traveled to Somalia.

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Links to United States Embassies and Consulates Worldwide
Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1999
FBI Websites Document Evidence Against Bin Laden
Dept of State/International Information Programs:
Ussamah Bin Laden
US District Court, Southern District of New York
U.S. State Department - Counterterrorism
Terrorism Research Center
Africa News on the World Wide Web

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