Al-Qaida informant tears up on stand in bombing trial

A former terrorist and al-Qaida informant broke down sobbing in federal court in Manhattan Wednesday, testifying in the embassy bombing trial of Ahmed Ghailani that he quit the terrorist group in 1996 when it refused to help him pay for a medical procedure his pregnant wife needed.

The informant, L'Houssaine Kherchtou, 46, a Moroccan who was an al-Qaida operative from 1991 until 1996, spent his second day on the stand describing his journey from al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, to service as a trusted operative and pilot-in-training for Osama bin Laden in Nairobi, Kenya, to a turncoat.

While providing background on al-Qaida's origins, tactics and leaders, however, Kherchtou said he quit before the plot to blow up U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was hatched, and knew nothing of Ghailani, the Tanzanian who is the first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in civilian court.

In his first turn as a federal witness in 2001, Kherchtou testified that bin Laden was strapped for cash in 1996, transferring his headquarters from the Sudan to Afghanistan, and wouldn't pay $500 for a Caesarean section Kherchtou's wife needed to deliver a child.

This time, he choked up when asked the same question, used a handkerchief to wipe away tears, and could barely answer "yes" when a prosecutor asked him a second time. There was no explanation for the tears, and Kherchtou said he also quit because he didn't see much of a future for his family in Afghanistan.

He's now living in the United States. He pleaded guilty 10 years ago to conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Somalia, and is hoping for a lenient sentence in return for his cooperation.

The trial is in its second week. Witnesses have linked Ghailani to the truck used for the bomb that exploded at the embassy in Tanzania, but he claims he was an errand boy who didn't know a terror plot was under way.