Trial of accused U.S. Embassy bomber delayed

The embassy bombing trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was postponed for two days on Friday as prosecutors fretted about losing a key witness who was disclosed during coercive CIA questioning of Ghailani.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ordered a delay from Monday to Wednesday so prosecutors can appeal if he rules they can't call Hussein Abebe, a Tanzanian taxi driver who would testify that he sold Ghailani explosives used in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam.

Kaplan has previously hinted that he may ban Abebe's appearance as the fruit of improper coercion. The continuance, requested by the government, was the latest signal that Kaplan may be leaning in that direction, but it also could be designed to give the judge more time to issue a decision.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, is charged as a conspirator in the 1998 al-Qaida plot to bomb embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which took 224 lives. Four other men were convicted in 2001. Ghailani, captured in 2004, is the first former CIA and Guantánamo detainee brought to trial in a civilian court.

The government's ability to prosecute him is seen as a test of its ability to try other, more notorious terror suspects - such as alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - after lengthy and harsh detentions.

Prosecutors did win one ruling Friday from Kaplan, who said he would allow them to introduce "fatwas" and death-to-America exhortations from Osama bin Laden - one of 25 co-conspirators charged in the case.

Lawyers for Ghailani, whose defense is that he was a dupe who didn't know he was part of a bomb plot, argued that the statements from bin Laden would unduly inflame jurors.

Despite that victory, the stakes appeared to be bigger for prosecutors in the legal wrangling over Abebe's testimony, where an adverse ruling could damage the Obama administration's argument that detentions could be harmonized with civilian prosecution.

Prosecutors, who have described Abebe as a "giant witness," also say they can make their case without him. But one defense lawyer from the embassy bombing trial in 2001 said that in that case - before Abebe was discovered - the evidence against Ghailani was limited and circumstantial.

"Based on what they had at that trial, it was not a compelling case against Ghailani himself," said Joshua Dratel, who represented defendant Wadih el Hage.