Embassy Bomber Set for Extradition

The Guardian reports

A Saudi man accused of conspiring with Osama bin Laden in the bombings of two US embassies expects to be extradited to face charges after more than 12 years in British custody, according to documents which have emerged from a US court.

Prosecutors in New York have charged Khalid al-Fawwaz with helping al-Qaida to orchestrate the 1998 car bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people.

A letter from a lawyer seeking to be appointed as Fawwaz's US defense counsel said: "He [Fawwaz] anticipates extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States within the next few months to face these charges."

The lawyer, David Kirby, told Reuters that he had been in touch with Fawwaz's British lawyers, who he said had told him they had exhausted all efforts to fight Fawwaz's extradition, and he could arrive in the US in the next few weeks.

Kirby's request to be appointed as Fawwaz's US defence lawyer was denied by Judge Lewis Kaplan of Manhattan federal court, who is presiding over the case. He asked him to renew his application once Fawwaz arrives.

Four co-defendants of Ghailani were convicted of all charges, including joining an al-Qaida conspiracy to kill US nationals, during a 2001 trial in New York.

Fawwaz, who was arrested in 1998, moved to London in the 1990s from Kenya with his family, and established an organisation called the Advice and Reformation Committee, a political group headed by Bin Laden that was said to be campaigning for peaceful reform in Saudi Arabia.

US investigators said Bin Laden, through Fawwaz, published several threats against the US in the 1990s for keeping troops in Saudi Arabia, and also against so-called crusaders for allegedly waging war on Muslims.

Fawwaz has fought against his extradition, denied any involvement with Bin Laden and rejected allegations that the committee was a British arm of al-Qaida.

Ahmed Ghailani, a former bodyguard for Bin Laden, was sentenced to life in prison in January over the embassy bombings, following a six-week trial in Manhattan. He was the first former Guantánamo Bay detainee to face a civilian trial in the US.

He was captured in 2004 in Pakistan after a battle with government troops, and was later found guilty of being part of the plot in which hundreds of were killed in twin bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.