Guilty: Egyptian admits killings in US embassy attacks

 New York.An Egyptian man accused of helping plan the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya pleaded guilty of the offence on Friday.

Adel Abdel Bary, 54, who was extradited to the United States from Britain in October 2012, entered the plea on three counts accusing him of working for Al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

He pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill US nationals, conspiring to make a threat to kill, injure, intimidate and damage and destroy property by means of an explosive, and making such a threat.

In 1997 and 1998, Bary led the London cell of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation of now Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The group has now essentially merged with the Al-Qaeda network.

Bary called journalists in Europe and the Middle East to pass on Al-Qaeda’s claim of responsibility for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa that killed 244 people and wounded more than 5,000 others.

The claims included threats of future Al-Qaeda attacks and were sent from London to media organisations in France, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates the day after the embassy bombings.

The August 7, 1998, car bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi killed 213 people and wounded another 5,000. An almost simultaneous truck bomb outside the US mission in Tanzania killed 11 people and wounded 70 more. Bary also arranged for messages to be transmitted to and from the media and his co-conspirators, including bin Laden and Zawahiri.

The three counts carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Bary has already spent 16 years in British and US custody.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said Bary assisted in fomenting and inciting violence and terrorism, and conspiring to kill innocent people, including Americans serving overseas. “Today he has admitted his guilt, and subject to further information requested by the judge, awaits the sentence to be imposed by an American civilian court,” Mr Bharara said.

His son, London rapper Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, was named in the British media as a possible suspect in the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria. But media reports have since suggested that British investigators no longer believe that the rapper is the masked militant. Friday’s plea came two months before Bary was set to go on trial alongside Saudi businessman Khalid al-Fawwaz and Libyan defendant Anas al-Libi in connection with the embassy bombings.

Bary’s guilty plea comes nearly five months after a US court raised the amount of compensation to victims of the US embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi to a staggering $8 billion (Sh12.8 trillion).

Earlier, a similar case by Tanzanian bombing victims had seen a compensation of more than $400 million awarded for death or injury.

The judgment on the consolidated case involving more than 500 clients was made on Friday in the US.

The victims of the attack were represented by, among others, Mr Gavriel Mairone of MM-LAW LLC and Mr William Wheeler of Wheeler & Franks Law Firm LLC.

This time, the monetary award will go not only to those who died or were injured in the twin terror attack but also all the employees in the two embassies that were hit on August 7, 1998.

Surviving relatives of the victims welcomed the decision. Life never returned to normal for some of them following the killing or maiming of their loved ones. In an email to Kenya’s Daily Nation, Mr Mairone said the suit included citizens of Kenya and Tanzania.

“I have not given up on finding justice for the victims who are neither US citizens nor employees of the US government and their families,” he said. “Unfortunately, under the current US law, we were able to bring this lawsuit only on behalf of the families of employees and American citizens.”

The judgment, on behalf of 570 victims, employees at the US embassies and their surviving family members, represents the largest set of awards since Congress approved legislation in 2008 to allow terror victims who are employees of the US government and their families to sue foreign governments for responsibility for attacks.

The judgment was entered against the governments of Sudan and Iran, which were accused of supporting international terrorism. “There’s no amount of money that can compensate people for the loss,” said Mr Mairone, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs. “But the point is that this is not about compensation, it’s about trying to bring the rule of law across the world.”

On that fateful day of August 7, 1998, suicide bombers in explosives-laden trucks rammed the US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi between 10.30am and 10.40am, and almost simultaneously detonated bombs.

Although the attacks targeted American facilities, the vast majority of the casualties were local citizens. Twelve Americans were killed, including two CIA employees at the Nairobi embassy.