Alleged al-Qaida bomber identified by witnesses

Two Tanzanian welders Tuesday fingered Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani as the purchaser of seven acetylene and oxygen tanks that authorities say were used in the 1998 bombing of a United States embassy, puncturing Ghailani's claim that he was just an "errand boy" in the plot.

Welder Felix Lekule said two men, a tall one and a short one whom he identified as Ghailani, bought the tanks and paid to have them filled with gas during three separate visits in 1998, with Ghailani doing most of the talking and pulling cash out of a pouch on his waist.

"I had sold one pair before, but I never sold that many to one person," said Lekule, testifying through a Swahili interpreter in federal court in Manhattan trial of Ghailani for conspiracy in the al-Qaida bombings of American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, Kenya, that took 224 lives in 1998.

Prosecutors previously tied Ghailani to the purchase of the Nissan Atlas used in the truck bomb that exploded outside the embassy in Tanzania.

Traces of at least 19 pressurized acetylene and oxygen tanks were found at the bomb site, along with traces of more than a thousand pounds of TNT. Ghailani's lawyers admit that he was involved in acquiring bomb parts.

They have argued, however, that he was used as an errand boy by two older plotters - Sheikh Ahmed Swedan and Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam - and didn't know that a terror plot was under way.

Msalam, reportedly killed in a drone attack in Pakistan last year, accompanied Ghailani to buy the tanks, Lekule said. But Tuesday's testimony cast Ghailani as principal more than helper.

Flenan Abel Shayo, another welder who had known Ghailani for years, said Ghailani first approached him for the tanks alone, and Shayo brokered the deal with Lekule.

Ghailani said he needed the gas because he had been hired to cut some scrap metal. Shayo was out of work. After putting the deal with Lekule together, he said, he asked Ghailani about taking him along on the scrap metal job. "He just laughed," Shayo testified.