The first Guantanamo detainee to face a civilian trial is a cold-blooded killer and terrorist who slipped away the day before his cohorts carried out a plot to attack two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, a prosecutor said Monday in closing arguments.
Ahmed Ghailani joined two known al-Qaida operatives on a plane to Pakistan, where they could "congratulate themselves on the massacre of innocents they have caused," Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry Chernoff told jurors in federal court in Manhattan.
Chernoff asked the jury to reject defense claims that Ghailani was an unwitting dupe for a terror cell. He said the men were thugs operating on orders from Osama bin Laden.