American legal firm to sue Sudan for 1998 Nairobi bomb attack

July 30, 2008 (NAIROBI) — A U.S. legal firm is set to file a suit against Sudan and Iran to compensate Kenyan victims of 1998 bomb attack against the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

The two countries are accused of having sponsored the attack on the US embassy on August 7, 1998 that left 206 Kenyans and 12 Americans dead. More than 5,000 people were injured. The attack was linked to local members of the al Qaeda terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.

According to Nairobi based The Nation, an American legal firm, Mann and Mairone Attorneys has gathered enough evidence in its two-year research, linking key officials in the governments of Sudan and Iran as the sponsors of the terrorist attack.

“We have significant evidence indicating that senior government officials of the Islamic Republic of Sudan and Iran provided such support and finance to al Qaeda and therefore were enablers of the terrorist attack that killed and maimed hundreds of residents of Kenya and they must be held legally liable for the death and destruction caused,” said Gavriel Mairone.

The counter-terrorism legal expert said the suit would be filed before August 7, and will only involve the Kenyans employees of the US embassy, adding they organized a meeting with them this week.

Washington rejected to compensate the Kenyan victims of the attack against its embassy in Nairobi saying it was itself a victim and that the al Qaeda group should be held responsible. In addition, it said that it had spent millions of dollars in helping victims seek medical aid.

Nairobi attack was planned simultaneously with another attack against the US embassy in Dar es Salam, Tanzania. These attacks brought bin Laden and al Qaeda to international attention for the first time, and resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.

In response to the bombings, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In Sudan, the missiles destroyed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant, where 50% of Sudan’s medications for both people and animals were manufactured.

The Clinton Administration claimed that there was ample evidence to prove that the plant produced chemical weapons, but a thorough investigation after the missile strikes revealed that the intelligence was unreliable.

(ST)