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U.S. Embassies Bomber Suspect Appeals To South African Court
CAPE TOWN, March 28 (News Agencies) - A Tanzanian accused of bombing U.S. embassies in east Africa faces the death penalty as the result of his unlawful "disguised extradition" by South African authorities, the Cape High Court heard Wednesday.
Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a Tanzanian Muslim, is one of four men charged by the U.S. authorities with complicity in blowing up embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in August 1998.
The two car bombs targeting the embassies killed 224 people and injured more than 4,000 others.
Mohamed, who is in prison in Otisville, New York, is one of four accused members of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden's organization charged with the deadly bombings. Two of the suspects face the death sentence if convicted and the others face life imprisonment.
Senior counsel Anwar Albertus, representing 27-year-old Mohamed, has asked the court to rule that his arrest by South African immigration authorities in Cape Town in 1999 and subsequent hand over to the U.S. federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was unlawful.
The fact that the South Africans had not followed routine deportation procedures amounted to "disguised extradition", which was frowned on everywhere in the world except in the U.S., he argued.
Albertus also wants the court to order the South African government to request the U.S. not to impose the death penalty. An order in Mohamed's favor would likely influence the U.S. jury.
He said the evidence led against Mohamed so far in the U.S. trial, which started last month, was compelling and there was a strong possibility his client would get the death sentence.
The manner of Mohamed's arrest constituted a violation of his rights to just and lawful administrative action and to equal protection under the law. Albertus, accusing senior officials of being "demonstrably dishonest", said Mohamed was unceremoniously bundled out of the country.
He said the South African government had, furthermore, failed to secure any undertakings from U.S. authorities, when handing Mohamed over, either not to seek the death penalty in the event of his conviction or that any death sentence would not be carried out.
Albertus said the South African government had a duty to ensure Mohamed's rights to life and dignity and not to be punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading manner.
Mohamed has cited as respondents President Thabo Mbeki and the ministers of foreign affairs, home affairs and justice, as well as the director of public prosecutions.
In December, the ministries were ordered by the court to furnish Mohamed with information relating to his detention and deportation to the United States. Cape Judge President John Hlope and his colleague Andre Blignaut are hearing the application.
Albertus said the presiding judge in the U.S. case, Judge Dennis Sands, had sanctioned the South African proceedings.
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