Judge Bars Embassy Bombing Witness in Ghailani Trial
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The U.S. can’t call a key witness in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, an alleged terrorist charged with bombing two U.S. embassies, because Ghailani was “coerced” by the CIA into disclosing the witness’s identity, a judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, in New York, rejected a request by prosecutors to allow Hussein Abebe, a Tanzanian miner, to testify that he sold five crates of dynamite to Ghailani before the 1998 blasts in Tanzania and Kenya. It delayed a trial that was supposed to start today and marked a setback for a prosecutor who called Abebe a “giant” witness in the case and said he’s the only person who could give a first-hand account of Ghailani’s role in the attacks.