Embassy Bomber Gets Life
CNN reports:
A federal judge sentenced Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to life without parole on Tuesday for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people and left thousands wounded.
He was the first Guantanamo detainee tried in U.S. civilian court, having been convicted by a federal jury in November on a single conspiracy charge to destroy buildings and property at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"Finally, 12 and a half years after those devastating and despicable attacks, Ahmed Ghailani will pay for his crimes," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told reporters.
Ghailani was acquitted of the remaining 284 counts of conspiracy and terrorism-related charges, including conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and to use weapons of mass destruction.
He had faced a minimum of 20 years in prison but instead received a life sentence.
Ghailani, a 36-year-old Tanzanian, never took the stand.
The trial was considered a test for the Obama administration, which had maintained that it could try some terrorism suspects in civilian courts. The sentencing coincides with both the president's State of the Union address and reports of a possible increase in the use of military commissions.
