African Bomb Suspect Pleads for His Life

Mohamed, 27, was charged with "operational responsibility" for the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and for allegedly conspiring to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. In these bombings, which took place on Aug. 7, 1998, 224 people, including 12 Americans, were killed. Hundreds more were wounded.

The Tanzanian suspect, who pleaded not guilty when he appeared before U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand in October, is scheduled to be heard in the New York state court Wednesday.

Mohamed's lawyers, according to a South African newspaper, the Argus, are expected to argue that the South African government knew when he was handed over to the FBI that he might be given the death penalty if convicted on the charges for which he was arrested.

The suspect's legal team is claiming that the South African government was bound by the South African constitution to respect and protect his rights to life and dignity and his right not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhumane or degrading way.

The Constitutional Court in South Africa declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional in 1996. However, Judge Leonard Sand has already indicated that the death penalty would be a competent sentence "because the South African authorities had not prohibited it."

In the U.S. indictment, filed on June 16, 1999, Mohamed was the first of eight suspects named to be apprehended, while a Saudi Arabian national, Osama bin Laden, the "brain" behind many terrorist actions, was next on the list in the 51-page document presented to the U.S. court.

It is believed that Mohamed was part of a terrorist group calling itself "al Queda" whose declared aims are to "drive American forces out of Saudi Arabia and Somalia by violence" and to murder Americans.

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed arrived in South Africa under the false name of Zahran Nassor Maulid shortly after the bombing of the two American embassies in Africa.

The suspect applied for asylum and was offered a temporary permit to stay in Cape Town, where he worked as an assistant cook at Burger World.

After receiving an anonymous tip from the FBI, South African police started to search for the Tanzanian fugitive.

It is believed that their first attempt to nab Mohamed was unsuccessful because the police officers could not find him at his Cape Town address.

However, Mohamed was finally arrested Oct. 5 when he came to the Cape Town immigration office to renew his temporary residence permit.

Two days later Mohamed was transported to New York in the company of FBI agents after South African authorities proclaimed him an illegal alien and ordered his deportation.

Mohamed's lawyers are now claiming that the South African government violated the principle of international law (which requires a country to give an assurance that the death penalty will not be applied to an extradited person) by unconditionally surrendering him to the United States.

Some South African legal experts are also claiming that President Thabo Mbeki's government violated international law, the Aliens Law Control Act and the Extradition Act, by arresting a suspected bomber and handing him over to the U.S. authorities.

However, the National Director of Public Prosecutors, Bulelani Ngcuka, was quoted in the local media as saying that as far as he was concerned, the South African agents who arrested Mohamed did not violate any laws.