747FOCAL
23rd Mar 2004, 12:39
Trial Told Of Smoking Objects Near Israeli Airliner
March 22, 2004
A witness told the trial of three Kenyans charged with plotting attacks on Westerners and Israelis on Monday that he saw two smoking objects flying beneath the wings of an Israeli airliner.
In a previous hearing of the trial, which centers on attacks claimed by al Qaeda, the prosecution displayed a two-metre long missile launcher it said was used in a failed attack in 2002 on a departing Israeli airliner in Kenya's port city of Mombasa.
"I was digging in my farm when I saw a plane fly overhead, then I heard a very, very loud noise and when I looked up, I saw two objects flying behind the plane," Furaha Saidi Fujo, a Mombasa farmer, told a Nairobi magistrate's court.
"They had white smoke billowing and were just under the wings of the aircraft. Then suddenly the aircraft moved as if to avoid the two objects and then flew very high into the sky... above the clouds."
Fujo was a witness for the prosecution, which says it is trying to paint an authoritative picture for the court of the incidents at the center of their case.
The missile attack happened within minutes of a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel north of the Indian Ocean coastal city.
Kenyans Kubwa Mohammad Seif, a fisherman, Said Saggar Ahmed, a teacher, and Salmin Mohammed Khamis, a hardware shop assistant, were charged in November with conspiracy in the two Mombasa attacks and in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.
The three have also been charged with conspiring in a failed plot to blow up the US mission in Nairobi between November 2002 and June 2003. They deny all charges.
Security officials have told reporters that the evidence of conspiracy to be presented to the court will consist mostly of confessions made by defendants during police questioning.
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the Mombasa attacks. US officials say al Qaeda was also responsible for attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 which killed more than 200 people.
The Nairobi embassy was rebuilt on an isolated suburban plot. Security officials say the new compound was the target of a plot in June involving an explosives-packed truck and hijacked plane which could have crashed into the embassy building.
The US mission was shut down for several days that month due to what officials said was a serious terrorist threat.
A related trial of four people facing 15 counts of murder for their alleged role in the bombing of the Paradise Hotel is set to reconvene in Kenya's high court in June.
March 22, 2004
A witness told the trial of three Kenyans charged with plotting attacks on Westerners and Israelis on Monday that he saw two smoking objects flying beneath the wings of an Israeli airliner.
In a previous hearing of the trial, which centers on attacks claimed by al Qaeda, the prosecution displayed a two-metre long missile launcher it said was used in a failed attack in 2002 on a departing Israeli airliner in Kenya's port city of Mombasa.
"I was digging in my farm when I saw a plane fly overhead, then I heard a very, very loud noise and when I looked up, I saw two objects flying behind the plane," Furaha Saidi Fujo, a Mombasa farmer, told a Nairobi magistrate's court.
"They had white smoke billowing and were just under the wings of the aircraft. Then suddenly the aircraft moved as if to avoid the two objects and then flew very high into the sky... above the clouds."
Fujo was a witness for the prosecution, which says it is trying to paint an authoritative picture for the court of the incidents at the center of their case.
The missile attack happened within minutes of a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel north of the Indian Ocean coastal city.
Kenyans Kubwa Mohammad Seif, a fisherman, Said Saggar Ahmed, a teacher, and Salmin Mohammed Khamis, a hardware shop assistant, were charged in November with conspiracy in the two Mombasa attacks and in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.
The three have also been charged with conspiring in a failed plot to blow up the US mission in Nairobi between November 2002 and June 2003. They deny all charges.
Security officials have told reporters that the evidence of conspiracy to be presented to the court will consist mostly of confessions made by defendants during police questioning.
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the Mombasa attacks. US officials say al Qaeda was also responsible for attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 which killed more than 200 people.
The Nairobi embassy was rebuilt on an isolated suburban plot. Security officials say the new compound was the target of a plot in June involving an explosives-packed truck and hijacked plane which could have crashed into the embassy building.
The US mission was shut down for several days that month due to what officials said was a serious terrorist threat.
A related trial of four people facing 15 counts of murder for their alleged role in the bombing of the Paradise Hotel is set to reconvene in Kenya's high court in June.