Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali (born 18 January 1977) is a British-born Saudi terrorist. Al-Owhali is one of the four

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

members sentenced in 2001 to life without parole for their parts in the

1998 United States embassy bombings The 1998 United States embassy bombings were attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people were killed in nearly simultaneous truck bomb explosions in two East African cities, one at the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam, ...

. The others are Mohammed Saddiq Odeh,

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed Khalfan Khamis Mohamed ( ar, خلفان النعيمي) (born 5 March 1974), a Tanzanian national, is one of numerous al-Qaeda suspects who were indicted in 1998,

, and Wadih el-Hage.

Militant activity

A Saudi from a wealthy family, al-Owhali attended Khalden training camp in 1996. He traveled to Kenya on a false passport under the name of Khalid Salim Saleh Bin Rashid, which he later claimed was provided by "Bilal", which is an alias of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. During the Nairobi bombing, he had initially sat in the passenger seat of the Toyota Dyna, and threw a stun grenade at embassy guards before exiting the vehicle which the driver detonated.

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

later offered the explanation that it had been his intention to leap out and shoot the guards to clear a path for the truck, but that he had left his pistol in the truck and subsequently ran off.

Arrest and imprisonment

Kenyan doctors attending to al-Owhali were suspicious of his role in the event, and noted that his injuries showed he had his back to the explosion and suggested he may have been running from the scene. He was arrested August 12, 1998 and confessed to his role in the bombing. He cooperated with the FBI willingly, and gave them the telephone number he had called before and following the bombing: 967-1-200578. It was a phone number to a house in Yemen belonging to

Ahmad Mohammad Ali al-Hada Ahmad Mohammad Ali al-Hada is an al-Qaeda operative from Yemen whose family is described by Federal government of the United States, US government officials as a Clandestine cell system, "supercell" within the al-Qaeda network. Early life and Al ...

, the father-in-law of Khalid Mihdhar, one of five hijackers of

American Airlines Flight 77 American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled American Airlines domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The Boe ...

, which was flown into the

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

as part of the September 11 attacks. The house turned out to be the key communications hub for al-Qaeda. Through this number the CIA learned about the upcoming Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit where the plans for 9/11 and USS Cole bombing were finalized. In a successful bid to escape the death penalty, Al-Owhali's lawyers used a video clip from Madeleine Albright and courtroom testimony from Ramsey Clark and

Dennis Halliday Denis J. Halliday (born c.1941) was the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from 1 September 1997 until 1998. He was previously Deputy Resident Representative to Singapore of the United Nations Development Programme.Murphy, C.N., 2006 ...

, attesting to the negative impact of sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, which encouraged al-Owhali to become a participant in terrorism against the United States. Al-Owhali was convicted of murder and was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

without the possibility of parole. Federal prosecutors had been seeking a death sentence, but he was spared execution after jurors failed to unanimously agree on a death sentence. Al-Owhali is currently serving his life sentence at ADX Florence in Colorado, USA. His inmate register number is 42371-054.

Provided evidence against other captives in the war on terror

Two Summary of Evidence memos prepared for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of the fourteen "

high-value detainees Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism, refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. ...

" mentioned al-Owhali:

References

External links

* This is a declassified executive summary of status and findings of the FBI investigation into the embassy bombings as of November 18, 1998. {{DEFAULTSORT:Owhali, Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al- Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda members Inmates of ADX Florence Living people 1977 births British people of Saudi Arabian descent Saudi Arabian mass murderers Saudi Arabian people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by the United States federal government People convicted on terrorism charges Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government