Posted on 10/18/2001 3:55:56 PM PDT by kattracks
NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - One of the jurors who convicted four of Osama bin Laden's followers of the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa said on Thursday she was angry that the U.S. government was unprepared for the Sept. 11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center.
The juror, who spoke out publicly for the first time, said the evidence disclosed at the embassy bombing trial in federal court in Manhattan should have alerted officials that bin Laden's plots had been escalating in size.
"They (embassy bombers) were in training for what they were planning for the World Trade Center," said the juror, who kept her identity secret. "I was very surprised over how little attention was paid to this case. I felt the enormity of it all. On Sept. 11 I shook my head. ... I was mad at my government. ... I was very angry with them. Were they listening?
"We underestimated bin Laden. ... Why weren't we better prepared?" she asked.
The woman, known as Juror No. 7, along with another woman, Juror No. 2, spoke to reporters after the sentencing of the four defendants they had convicted in May of conspiring with bin Laden to kill Americans in a scheme that included the 1998 embassy bombings. The four men were sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday.
Both said they had immediately suspected bin Laden when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center last month. The two women were members of the anonymous panel of 12 and their comments marked the first time they had spoken out since the embassy bombing trial verdict.
The trial and subsequent penalty proceedings lasted about five months in Manhattan federal court.
The jury's guilty verdict marked the first U.S. convictions based on crimes orchestrated by bin Laden, who was indicted as the mastermind behind the simultaneous bombings at the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
He is also the prime suspect in last month's assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Another plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers apparently struggled with the hijackers. Nearly 5,400 people were killed in the attacks.
Both women said they had not originally planned to attend the sentencing but they changed their minds after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"After the 11th it became much more important to be here ... to let them know we're not afraid of them," said juror No. 2.
"I originally had no interest in coming. I thought we did our jobs to the best of our abilities," said juror No. 7. "But on Sept. 11, it became crucial that I come here."
"Even though it was a formality, I had to be here to see it. I had to look at them one last time ... to know the months I spent here were not in vain. I'm proud as an American our system does work."
Two of the four men were found guilty of directly participating in the bombings that ripped through the embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They could have been sentenced to die, but because the jury was deadlocked on execution they received a mandatory term of life in prison.
The two women jurors told reporters that they had voted for the death penalty. They said they did not know if jurors opposed to execution would have changed their mind if the verdict had been reached after Sept. 11.
"If anyone is called for jury service and ... the death penalty is an issue, be very true to yourself. If you can't follow the process, don't say that you can," said juror No. 2.
No offense meant.
Then I read #19 below by sonofliberty2 and he said it all. So ..... Bump.
Oh yeah, yes it is clintoon's fault but the CIA and NSA and FBI and most of the rest of the alphabet BLEW it. Heads should roll. But they won't. There is no accountability in gubmint.
When you fly on an airline, remember that you are flying on THEIR terms, not yours. Their "security" is supposed to protect you, their regulations are supposed to make you safe, and their pilots are supposed to fly the aircraft properly. If you are willing to put your life in their hands for a $299 round-trip fare, then you really have nothing to complain about. Nothing about airport security changed on September 11th -- only the results did.
As to the FBI, we all now know that the only thing on Louie Freeh's mind for the last ten years has been covering up screw-ups and currying favor with the DC punditocracy by illegally leaking any information he came across that made Clinton look bad. And, of course, those 100 full-time FBI agents assigned to the various Clinton investigations strained the Bureau's resources a little. But, hey, it was a choice of tracking down terrorists or chasing down Clinton's dingus, so of course they chose to focus on the really important issue -- the one so important that conservatives had to tie the country up for a year and trump up a phoney impeachment over it.
Where was Clinton the last eight years?
Unlike most of his critics and enemies, he was trying to do his job
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