[AnNahar] The trial of a Saudi businessman accused in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa got underway in New York on Tuesday with jury selection.
Khalid al-Fawwaz, who was allegedly head of al-Qaida's London office until his arrest in 1999, is accused on four counts of conspiracy to kill Americans and conspiracy to destroy U.S. property.
The attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which were claimed by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, killed 224 people and wounded around 5,000.
Arrested in Britain in 1999, Fawwaz has already spent 16 years in custody and pleads not guilty.
On Tuesday, he took a seat in the Manhattan court room, just a short walk from the site of the former Twin Towers destroyed by al-Qaida in the 9/11 attacks.
He wore a crisp white tunic, neatly pressed and of the type traditionally favored by men in Saudi Arabia, with a crocheted white prayer cap on his head.
He had dark shadows under his eyes, his face was pale and partially obscured by a long, pointy grey beard.
He folded his stocky frame into a court chair, put black-rimmed spectacles on his nose to consult documents and exchanged pleasantries with his lawyers.
U.S. prosecutors claim that Fawwaz was head of al-Qaida's London office -- put in charge personally by bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in Pakistan in May 2011.
Fawwaz is accused of setting up the London office to publicize bin Laden's statements and serve as a conduit for messages between different al-Qaida cells
From around 1993 -- five years before the attacks -- he is named as an al-Qaida associate who allegedly began to establish businesses and residence in Kenya.
From 1995 to 1998, he allegedly provided bin Laden and other al-Qaida members with communications, including a satellite phone, and disseminated bin Laden's declaration of jihad in England.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has overseen a string of terror trials ending in guilty convictions, opened the first stage of jury selection on Tuesday.
A pool of around 200 prospective jurors, who have already completed questionnaires, will be whittled down to 12, with six alternates, who will hear the case.
The process is expected to continue until at least Thursday before opening arguments can begin.
The Fawwaz trial is estimated to last five weeks, considerably shorter than previously expected.
One of his co-defendants, Libya's Abu Anas al-Libi, died in a New York hospital earlier this month after suffering from advanced hepatitis C and cancer.
A second Egyptian, Adel Abdel Bary, pleaded guilty last year and is set to be sentenced by Kaplan on February 6.
Fawwaz was arrested in Britain in 1999 and fought a nearly 12-year battle against extradition before being sent to the United States to stand trial. 
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