In a courthouse ringed by heavily armed marshals a few blocks from the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center, four followers of Osama bin Laden were sentenced to life without parole for the deadly 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
The men were the first to be convicted by a US jury of carrying out bin Laden's 1998 religious edict to kill Americans wherever they are found.
On Thursday, they got the maximum sentence as expected after US District Judge Leonard Sand called terrorism "one of the most serious threats to our society ... to the society of any civilized nation."
He also ordered each of the defendants to pay US$33 million in restitution, perhaps out of terrorist assets frozen by the US government in recent weeks.
The near-simultaneous Aug. 7, 1998, bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killed 231 people, including 12 Americans. Nearly two dozen people have been indicted in the case, including bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding out in Afghanistan and is also wanted for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Prosecutors during the six-month trial accused bin Laden and his organization of directing the bombings, using a satellite telephone from Afghanistan and messengers to communicate the orders.
"Al-Qaeda stands charged, tried, convicted and sentenced for terrorism," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in Washington. "Today's sentence sends a message: The United States will hunt terrorists down and make them pay a price for their evil acts of terrorism."
Sand handed down identical sentences for Wadih El-Hage, 41, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 28, Mohamed Al-'Owhali, 24, and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36.
The jury had considered and rejected the death penalty for Mohamed and Al-'Owhali, in part to keep them from being viewed as martyrs.
During the sentencing, El-Hage rose to condemn the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The killing of innocent people is radical, extreme and cannot be tolerated by any religion, principles or values," said El-Hage, a Lebanese-born naturalized American. He maintained his innocence during the 30-minute speech in federal court.
The government branded him a traitor and a liar, saying he raised money for bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization while living in Arlington, Texas.
El-Hage "claims to be a citizen, but he's not an American," prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said. "He betrayed his country, he betrayed his religion, he betrayed humanity."
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