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Alleged Defector From Bin Laden Group Testifies In New York
NEW YORK, Feb 6 (News Agencies) - Osama bin Laden's alleged crusade against the United States was sparked by the 1991 Gulf War and the massive deployment of U.S. troops in the region, a former member of his group testified Tuesday.
"Bin Laden said, 'We can't let the Americans to stay in the holy area. We have to take them out, we have to fight them,'" said Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a witness produced by the prosecution at the embassy bombing trial here whose identity was kept secret until the trial.
The 34-year-old Sudanese national, who defected from bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and sought protection from the U.S. government, said the 1991 U.S.-led military campaign to eject Iraqi troops occupying Kuwait spurred bin Laden into action.
That's when bin Laden, then hiding in Sudan, issued his first "fatwa", or Islamic edict, directing his followers to target Americans, according to al-Fadl.
Since then, he has issued at least four more distinctly anti-American fatwas, the witness, a slightly-built man with a closely-cropped beard, testified.
In halting English, al-Fadl said while in Sudan, Islamic clerics loyal to bin Laden instructed al-Qaeda members not to concern themselves if innocent people fell victim to the group's attacks on U.S. forces.
"If they are innocent, they'll go to paradise. If they are guilty, they'll go to hell," the clerics advised, according to al-Fadl's testimony.
He said bin Laden supported the idea of "one Muslim leader for the Muslim world" and wanted to "change the Arab governments to make them Muslim governments."
Al-Fadl's testimony, expected to last through Thursday, came on the second day of the trial of four men accused of plotting and executing the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which left 224 people dead, 12 of them Americans.
All four suspects, believed to be members of al-Qaeda, have pleaded innocent.
If convicted, two of the accused - Saudi national Mohamed Rashid Daoud Al Owhali, 23, and Tanzanian Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27 - could face the death penalty.
The remaining two - Lebanese-American Wadih El Hage, 40, and Jordanian Mohamed Saddiq Odeh, 35 - face life in prison.
Defense attorneys tried several times to interrupt al-Fadl, arguing his testimony was based on hearsay.
Each time the witness responded firmly, "I was there."
Prosecutors say al-Fadl was recruited by al-Qaeda at a mosque in Brooklyn, New York, in 1988 and subsequently moved to Afghanistan.
He was accused by bin Laden's group of stealing money and was forced to flee.
Of the others charged in the embassy bombings, three people jailed in Britain await extradition to the United States, and 14, including bin Laden, remain at large.
Bin Laden, in exile in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban militia, is at the top of the 10 most wanted list created by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is also offering a multimillion-dollar reward for information leading to his capture.
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