NEW YORK: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden most trusted aide, Khalid al-Fawwaz, has been pronounced life imprisonment by a New York court over bomb explosion on US embassies in East Africa that killed 224 persons in 1998.
Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan gave verdict against the 52-year-old Khalid al-Fawwaz for his life in prison over finding him guilty of conspiracy to target US citizens and property, foreign news agency reported.
The culprit was convicted in February after a five week trial while he was arrested in London in September 1998 and he has already spent 16 years in detention.
Khalid al-Fawwaz was accused in bombing US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, killing 224 people and wounding more than 5,000 on August 7, 1998.
However, Fawwaz’s defense lawyer Bobbi Sternheim described her client as nothing more than a “calm and serene” man who dedicated his life to peaceful reform in his homeland.
She claimed he had never shared the violent views of bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, was never a member of Al-Qaeda and was only interested in fighting corruption in Saudi Arabia.
