<p>The attacks killed 224 people including 12 Americans.Ahmed Ghailani was found guilty only in conspiring to attack the US embassies and was cleared of nearly a dozen other charges Wednesday, for which US prosecutors had hoped to put him in prison for the rest of his life.<br /><br />The verdict was reached more than a week after a 12-member jury was ordered by Judge Lewis Kaplan to go into deliberations in a federal court in Lower Manhattan.<br />It was the first civilian trial of a Guantanamo detainee, which the Obama administration had hoped would be a test case for other terrorist cases. Military tribunals are the alternative for trying Guantanamo cases, but are slow-moving and fraught with controversy.<br /><br />During the month-long trial that began in October, US prosecutors accused Ghailani of plotting and helping to organise the attacks on the US embassies.<br /><br />But Ghailaini's lawyers said the Tanzanian was duped by Al Qaeda terrorist agents at work in eastern Africa with the intention of killing Americans. A key witness to Ghailani's confession of guilt was banned by the judge because Ghailani was tortured while under detention in CIA-run camps overseas.<br /><br />Four other plotters in the 1998 twin embassy bombings are serving life sentences in a US maximum security prison, without parole, since their conviction in 2001 for their involvement in the attacks.<br /><br />The Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam attacks brought Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to the attention of US security officials as a major mover on the terrorist scene. They bore the Al Qaeda trademark of simultaneous attacks used even more lethally in the 2001 attacks on the US.<br /><br />Along with his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden is also listed in the US court indictments for the attacks.<br /><br />Ghailani was arrested in Pakistan in 2004 and spent years in CIA-run camps, where he was alleged to have been tortured, before he was transferred to the US Naval Station's detention centre in Guantanamo Bay on Cuba.<br /><br />He was moved from Guantanamo to New York last year to await trial.</p>
<p>The attacks killed 224 people including 12 Americans.Ahmed Ghailani was found guilty only in conspiring to attack the US embassies and was cleared of nearly a dozen other charges Wednesday, for which US prosecutors had hoped to put him in prison for the rest of his life.<br /><br />The verdict was reached more than a week after a 12-member jury was ordered by Judge Lewis Kaplan to go into deliberations in a federal court in Lower Manhattan.<br />It was the first civilian trial of a Guantanamo detainee, which the Obama administration had hoped would be a test case for other terrorist cases. Military tribunals are the alternative for trying Guantanamo cases, but are slow-moving and fraught with controversy.<br /><br />During the month-long trial that began in October, US prosecutors accused Ghailani of plotting and helping to organise the attacks on the US embassies.<br /><br />But Ghailaini's lawyers said the Tanzanian was duped by Al Qaeda terrorist agents at work in eastern Africa with the intention of killing Americans. A key witness to Ghailani's confession of guilt was banned by the judge because Ghailani was tortured while under detention in CIA-run camps overseas.<br /><br />Four other plotters in the 1998 twin embassy bombings are serving life sentences in a US maximum security prison, without parole, since their conviction in 2001 for their involvement in the attacks.<br /><br />The Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam attacks brought Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to the attention of US security officials as a major mover on the terrorist scene. They bore the Al Qaeda trademark of simultaneous attacks used even more lethally in the 2001 attacks on the US.<br /><br />Along with his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden is also listed in the US court indictments for the attacks.<br /><br />Ghailani was arrested in Pakistan in 2004 and spent years in CIA-run camps, where he was alleged to have been tortured, before he was transferred to the US Naval Station's detention centre in Guantanamo Bay on Cuba.<br /><br />He was moved from Guantanamo to New York last year to await trial.</p>