Judge accepts guilty plea in U.S. embassy bombing case
By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday accepted the guilty plea of an Egyptian man charged in connection with the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, 10 days after expressing concern that prosecutors had given him too lenient a deal. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York said he would not second-guess the government's decision to offer Adel Abdul Bary an agreement that carries no more than 25 years in prison, despite his initial misgivings. "While a court has a role to play in accepting or rejecting such a bargain, that role is not simply to substitute its judgment for that of the prosecutor," he wrote. Bary, 54, pleaded guilty on Sept. 19 to three counts, including conspiring to murder U.S. citizens abroad, in connection with the attacks, which killed 224 people in Kenya and Tanzania. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years, though Bary is likely to get credit for the 15 years he already has spent in custody, including 13 years fighting extradition from Britain to the United States. Bary had faced 284 counts, including 224 counts of murder, and would have received a mandatory life sentence if convicted at trial of the most serious charges. In an unusual move, Kaplan declined to accept the plea at the hearing and asked prosecutors and defense lawyers for additional information. "You can well appreciate why I have questions in my mind," Kaplan said at the time. In court papers filed on Monday, the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Bary was less involved in the bombings than other members of the conspiracy. Prosecutors said the most serious counts would require proof that Bary knew of the attacks in advance. The evidence to suggest such foreknowledge, they said, was far from ironclad. "The evidence of Bary's direct involvement and knowledge of the bombings before they took place is limited, and the evidence establishes that Bary's primary role ... was that of a communications facilitator," the government wrote. In particular, both prosecutors and Bary's lawyers said evidence that Bary had received faxed claims of responsibility prior to the attacks was not as reliable as the government had once asserted. Bary's role, the government said, was to help disseminate messages from the leadership of al Qaeda. He was not accused of assisting in the planning of the bombings. In a separate letter, defense lawyers cited a recently discovered message Bary wrote in the days before the attacks in which he denounced the use of violence against civilians. Bary had been scheduled for trial in November alongside two co-defendants, Libyan Abu Anas al-Liby and Saudi Khalid al-Fawwaz. Both have pleaded not guilty. In a separate opinion issued on Tuesday, Kaplan said the trial of al-Liby and Fawwaz would take place before an anonymous jury, following his practice in previous cases involving terrorism charges. (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by David Ingram and Richard Chang)
