Report: Indictment For Bin Laden
Suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden is under the media microscope, so it should come as little surprise that new information is coming to light about the man who may have been responsible for directing embassy bombings in Africa that killed 257 people Aug. 7.
First comes word that bin Laden was indicted for solicitation of murder several weeks ago by a grand jury in Manhattan.
And, Tuesday, published reports said bin Laden has twice ordered the assassination of President Clinton.
A source speaking on the condition of anonymity tells The Associated Press that a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan indicted bin Laden for solicitation of murder. The felony is punishable by life in prison.
The grand jury was convened after 19 U.S. service personnel were killed when a bomb went off in June 1996 at a military apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. The source says there were suspicions that bin Laden had a connection with the terrorist act.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said he couldn't comment on reports that bin Laden was indicted.
The indictment occurred weeks ago, well before the Aug. 7 twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Twelve Americans were killed in the bombings.
Also, Newsday reports that bin Laden directed his followers at least twice to kill President Clinton, but neither attempt was ever made.
The first assassination attempt was to take place when Mr. Clinton visited the Philippines to begin a trip to Asia on Nov. 12, 1994, but it was abandoned because of heavy security.
Ramzi Yousef, later convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was to have been the hit man, the New York Post reported. He told FBI agents he planned to use missiles or explosives while Mr. Clinton was in a motorcade, Newsday said. The Post said a chemical attack was also considered.
A second attempt was planned for Pakistan in February, when Mr. Clinton had scheduled but later canceled a visit.
Yousef admitted his plan to kill Mr. Clinton to FBI agents who were escorting him from Pakistan to New York in 1995 for his trial in the bombing, the sources said. But he did not identify bin Laden as the mastermind, the sources said.
But one of his co-defendants, Wali Khan Amin Shah, once a top aide to bin Laden, told federal authorities in New York recently that the order to assassinate Mr. Clinton had come from bin Laden, according to two unidentified U.S. officials.