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Breaking News

Mohamed al-'Owhali Will Not be Executed

Aired June 12, 2001 - 14:52   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We now have some breaking news out of the federal court in lower Manhattan. On the sentence, the penalty phase sentence for Mohamed al-'Owhali who was convicted along with three other men of the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. 'Owhali was involved with the Kenya explosion. You'll recall that both explosions were within moments of one another in 1998. This was to determine whether or not 'Owhali was to die.

Let's call upon our correspondent who was in the courtroom, Brian Palmer in New York to tell us the results of the jury's decision -- Brian.

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the man who bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya will not meet same fate as Timothy McVeigh. The jury returned the verdict today and the judge made it very, very clear that if they could not unanimously agree that a death sentence should be imposed, then Mohamed al-'Owhali would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. That is exactly what has happened.

Now al-'Owhali was convicted exactly two weeks ago of the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya which killed 213 people: 258 of his convictions were for capital offenses including 213 murders. He faced the death penalty on each one of those counts. Now there were three other men convicted on the same day of the Kenya bombing as well as another bombing of the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in which 11 people died.

Only one other person faces or could face the death penalty for that -- for the Tanzania bombing. That would be a Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a Tanzanian citizen. This same jury will decide his fate. They'll begin their deliberations next week. Now the U.S. government has indicted over 12 -- roughly a dozen other people and they're still wanted in connection with these two bombings: the bombing in Tanzania and the bombing in Kenya including Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian man who is the leader of the group who is alleged to have ordered these attacks. Brian Palmer, here at U.S. courthouse.

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