Embassy bombings case reveals evidence against bin Laden

The promised information tying Osama bin Laden to the US terrorist attacks is likely to fit into a chain of evidence formed while prosecuting those involved in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.

Phone records, computer files and testimony by turncoat terrorists depict a nearly decade-long series of plots by an international network of Islamic extremists and aimed at US targets at home and abroad.

Evidence presented during a six month trial of four bin Laden followers in a New York court, just four blocks from the twin towers, included the following:

:: A computer report showing a Kenyan cell of bin Laden’s organisation was responsible for killing US military personnel in Somalia in 1993.

:: Testimony of a terrorist turncoat who said he was ordered by bin Laden to survey potential US, British, French and Israeli targets in Nairobi in 1993.

:: Records and testimony that show bin Laden used a satellite phone in February 1998 to issue an order to kill American civilians.

The trial revealed for the first time how bin Laden’s al-Qaida organization funded itself through a variety of business ventures, including import-export companies that traded gems and precious metals; agricultural products; and heavy machinery.

Bin Laden himself was charged in the embassy bombing indictment, and his name and words were cited throughout the trial.

Jurors were told the fugitive Saudi millionaire considered civilians legitimate targets in his holy war against America.

Four men were convicted this year of plotting to bomb two US embassies in Africa in 1998, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans.

The investigation, the largest in FBI history, produced a road map of the inner workings of al-Qaida, investigators say.

Jurors in the embassy bombing case heard from two former members of al-Qaida who cooperated with prosecutors and could be called again to testify against bin Laden should he ever come to trial.

One terrorist turncoat, Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, said he first met with bin Laden in the 1980s, when the financier was supporting rebels fighting the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan.

In 1989, he said, he again met bin Laden, who was thinking about creating al-Qaida to expand the militant Muslim cause.

By the early 1990s, bin Laden began issuing a series of fatwas, or religious edicts, against the United States, Al-Fadl said.

‘‘We have to stop the head of the Snake,’’ he quoted bin Laden as saying after the American military entered Somalia in 1993.

Around the same time, bin Laden’s personal secretary, Wadih El-Hage, a US citizen, tried to buy Stinger missiles to use against American targets, the informants said.

Al-Fadl also testified that bin Laden spent thousands of dollars to buy a satellite phone. Investigators found the number for bin Laden’s satellite phone in the address books of known terrorists.

The phone ‘‘gives you a window into how it is that al-Qaida operates,’’ prosecutor Kenneth Karas told jurors.

‘‘It’s the phone that they used to communicate the fatwa in February 1998 that says kill all American civilians.’’

Prosecutors said it was during a search of El-Hage’s home that they found the computer report showing bin Laden’s Kenyan cell was responsible for the 1993 killings in Somalia.

Evidence at the embassy bombing trial showed that El-Hage twice in 1997 went to visit bin Laden in Afghanistan. He later was dispatched to East Africa to militarise a cell that would bomb the embassy a year and a half later.

Another former bin Laden follower, L’Houssaine Kerchtou, testified that some of bin Laden’s soldiers recognized his authority in the terrorist network by calling him ‘‘The Director.’’

Kerchtou also corroborated testimony by another terrorist informant, Ali Mohmed, who said he was told by bin Laden in late 1993 to survey potential US, British, French and Israeli targets in Nairobi.

Mohamed prepared a report with pictures and diagrams of the American Embassy.

The testimony of Al-Fadl and Kerchtou, along with documents and phone records, proved bin Laden was operating through al-Qaida offices and cells worldwide, prosecutors said.

‘‘It has a hub,’’ Karas said. ‘‘It has headquarters in Afghanistan.’’