Tears at 1998 African embassy bombings trial
L’Houssaine Kherchtou, a man who was once Osama Bin Laden’s personal pilot, broke down in tears in a U.S. court Wednesday when he was asked why he left al Qaeda in 1995. Kherchtou, a 46-year-old Moroccan, said he left because he saw no future for his children in Afghanistan (where al Qaeda was planning to move) and because al Qaeda had refused to pay for his pregnant wife’s medical treatment. (Kherchtou has previously testified that after returning to in Sudan after a trip to Kenya in 1995, he found his wife begging on the street for $500 for an emergency cesarean section.) Kherchtou was testifying yesterday against Ahmed Ghailani, who is accused of helping al Qaeda bombers buy the truck that destroyed the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998. The bombing killed 11 people. A simultaneous explosion in Nairobi, Kenya killed 212 people.