New York — In horrific detail, with stories of a blast so fierce that it blew the teeth from one woman's mouth, survivors testified Wednesday about the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya that killed 213 people.
Witness Samuel Mganga said he spent two days buried under the rubble until he finally heard rescuers pleading with him to make noise so they could find him.
"They asked me to bang the wall, so I banged the wall," he told the jury in the case of four men on trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges of conspiracy.
If convicted, Wadih El-Hage, 40, and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, could face life in prison. Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, and Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, 24, could face death. Prosecutors contend the bombings were carried out on orders from alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The Aug. 7, 1998, blast at the embassy in Nairobi killed 213 people, including 12 Americans. Eleven more people were killed in an almost-simultaneous attack on the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Paul Butler assisted a blind victim, Tobias Otieno, a Kenyan employee of the U.S. embassy, off the witness stand after he testified that the bomb blast sounded like the "end of the world."
Another wounded survivor, Penina Wadia, was in a bus outside the embassy when she noticed a pickup truck approach the compound and a man get out.
The man thrust his hand in the air twice, and she heard a "pow" sound each time, she said. The blasts knocked her teeth from her mouth and blinded her.
Jurors leaned forward during much of the testimony. As Wadia hobbled off the witness stand, several jurors shook their heads.
Dr. Gretchen McCoy said she was in the embassy basement when the bomb went off. Later, she said, she found the bodies of two Americans. At Nairobi Hospital, she said, she saw "utter chaos."
George Mimba, 35, a Kenyan employee of the embassy, said he crawled on the floor after the blast, panting for air.
"As I was moving to the window, I could feel the bodies of dead people," he said.
He said he leaped out a window, expecting to die. He made sure he was wearing identification so relatives would know which body was his.
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