Ex-US Sergeant Pleads Guilty in US Embassy Bombing as the Court Rejects Another Defendant’s Plea

On October 20, 2000, Ali Mohamed, a former U.S. Army sergeant, pleaded guilty to conspiring with fugitive Osama bin Laden in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, marking the first time a close associate of bin Laden’s has cooperated with U.S. law enforcement authorities and providing potentially significant new leverage in efforts by the U.S. to obtain increased cooperation with other countries in efforts to investigate and prosecute perpetrators to the bombing. On October 24, 2000, the same court rejected an attempted plea by Wadih El-Hage, another defendant. Mr. Mohamed, 48, told U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand that he played a central role in the conspiracy to drive the U.S. from the Middle East by killing Americans at various embassies and attacking U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia and Somalia...[more]