Prosecution completes death penalty case against Tanzania bomber
Mohamed's cell mate at the time, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, is charged with attempted murder for stabbing Pepe in the eye with a sharpened plastic comb. Prosecutors described Mohamed as Salim's accomplice in the assault and what they portrayed as a hostage-taking and escape plan.
June 26, 2001 Posted: 12:15 PM EDT (1615 GMT)
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| Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a cell mate of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, allegedly sharpened this comb into a homemade knife |
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From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN Producer NEW YORK (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors asking a jury to impose a death sentence on convicted embassy bomber Khalfan Khamis Mohamed rested their case Monday. Prosecutors ended with medical testimony about the condition of the jail guard whose assault, they allege, is proof that Mohamed would continue to pose a danger even in jail, one of the government's justifications for seeking capital punishment. The government spent two and half days covering the November 1, 2000, stabbing of corrections officer Louis Pepe on the highest security floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal jail in New York City that adjoins the courthouse. Mohamed's cell mate at the time, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, is charged with attempted murder for stabbing Pepe in the eye with a sharpened plastic comb. Prosecutors described Mohamed as Salim's accomplice in the assault and what they portrayed as a hostage-taking and escape plan.
Mohamed's continued risk to others, even behind bars, is one of the factors prosecutors are arguing as they ask the jury to consider in its deliberations. Another is the impact on relatives of the 11 people killed and on the 85 injured in the August 7, 1998, bombing of the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Ten victims from Tanzania testified in one day before the jury last week. The same jurors considering Mohamed's sentence found him guilty on May 29 of participating in the Tanzania bombing and a worldwide conspiracy led by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden to kill Americans and destroy U.S. property. The jury also convicted two men in the coordinated, more lethal Kenya embassy bombing and a fourth man in the overall terror conspiracy. No witnesses to attack on guard
Dr. Maxim Koslow, a neurosurgeon who operated on Pepe, told the jury Monday that the makeshift knife plunged two and half inches into the guard's skull. Koslow said Pepe's permanent disabilities include loss of his left eye and brain damage that resulted in a 50 percent vision loss in his right eye, partial paralysis of his right arm, and severe language difficulties, both speaking and writing. No one saw the attack -- except Pepe, who is unable to testify -- and no videotape of it exists, despite cameras pointed at the jail unit's cells and hallways 24 hours a day. Jail officials said their recording device malfunctioned but has since been repaired. The comb and a filed-down brush that also was wielded in the attack were purchased in the jail commissary, according to receipts found in Salim and Mohamed's cell. Only Salim bought the combs. The jail no longer sells these items to inmates, according to MCC spokesman Robert Brooks. FBI forensic examiner Samuel Baechtel told the jury that sweatpants and T-shirt worn by Mohamed that day bore stains of officer Pepe's blood, according to DNA tests. Baechtel testified that Mohamed's blood was found only in one place, in a corridor down the hall from the cell where investigators believe the stabbing occurred. Defense attorneys begin case Tuesday
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Mohamed's attorneys will begin their case Tuesday seeking to persuade the jury of a dozen "mitigating factors" to oppose his execution. Mohamed's mother and siblings will testify that his execution would cause them to suffer grief and loss, and a psychiatrist is expected to testify that Mohamed does feel remorse for his actions. Mohamed's defense will further argue that his execution would merely make him a martyr and be used to justify future terrorist attacks. If the jury cannot vote unanimously for the death penalty, then U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand will impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release. That is the verdict the jury returned in the death penalty phase against convicted Kenya embassy bomber Mohamed al-'Owhali, the only other one among the four defendants for whom prosecutors asked the death penalty. |