Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali is one of the four former al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

 members sentenced in 2001 to life without parole for their parts in the 1998 United States embassy bombings

1998 United States embassy bombings

The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capitals of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The date of the...

. The others are Mohammed Saddiq Odeh

Mohammed Odeh

A Palestinian, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh is one of the four former al-Qaeda members sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for their parts in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He is in a supermax prison known as ADX Florence....

, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, and Wadih el Hage. At the time of this writing, all four are in the supermax prison known as ADX Florence

ADX Florence

The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility is a supermax prison for men that is located in unincorporated Fremont County, Colorado, United States, south of Florence. It is unofficially known as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, Supermax, or The Alcatraz of the Rockies...

. A number of other suspects are still wanted or awaiting trial for this bombing.

Militant activity

A Saudi from a wealthy family, Al-Owhali attended al-Qaeda's Khalden training camp

Khalden training camp

The Khalden training camp was a military training camp in Afghanistan. According to the documentary Son of al Qaeda there were hundreds of military training camps in Afghanistan which were tied to al Qaeda...

 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", whom American military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay have suggested was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing and other terrorist attacks, he allegedly headed al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf states prior to his capture in November 2002 by the CIA's Special Activities Division.The...

.

During the Nairobi bombing, he had initially sat in the passenger seat of the Mitsubishi Canter, and threw a stun grenade

Stun grenade

A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade or a flashbang, is a non-lethal weapon. The first devices like this were created in the 1960s at the order of the British Special Air Service as an incapacitant....

 at embassy guards before exiting the vehicle which the driver detonated. Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

 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, a Yemeni phone number belonging to the father-in-law of Khalid Mihdhar (who was a 9/11 hijacker and is thought to have helped organized the USS Cole bombing

USS Cole bombing

The USS Cole Bombing, or the USS Cole Incident, was a suicide attack against the United States Navy destroyer on October 12, 2000 while it was harbored and refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen American sailors were killed, and 39 were injured...

) which turned out to be the key communications hub in Yemen for al-Qaeda militants. He eventually tipped off the Americans 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 played video clips from two cabinet members, attesting to the negative impact of sanctions which encouraged him to join Al-Qaeda.

Provided evidence against other captives in the war on terror

The Summary of Evidence memo

Summary of Evidence (CSRT)

Counter-terrorism analysts prepared a Summary of Evidence memo for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of the 558 captives who remained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba in the fall of 2004.-The 2005 release:...

s prepared for the Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...

s of the fourteen "high-value detainees" mentioned Al-Owhali.
Fourteen "high-value detaninees" who had been held for years, in secret CIA interrogation camps
transferred from CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 custory to military custody in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

.

name	notes
Walid Bin Attash	One of the allegations against Walid Bin Attash was: "Mohammad Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali (Al-Owhali) stated that in approximately June or July 1998, the detainee told him that his (Al-Owhali's) mission was a martyrdom mission, where he would be driving a vehicle filled with explosives into a target which would result in his death. The detainee told Al-Owhali the target was a United States embassy in East Africa, but he was not told the exact country."
Abd Al Rahim Hussein Mohammed Al Nashiri‎	One of the allegations against Al Nashiri was: "Mohammad Rashid Daoud Al-Owhali (Al-Owhali), confessed and was later convicted in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, for his role in the al Qaida bombings of the United States embassies in East Africa, which occurred on 7 August 1998. Al-Owhali obtained a Yemeni passport in the name of Khalid Salim Saleh Bin Rashid. Al-Owhali identified the individual who facilitated Al-Owhali's obtaining a Yemeni passport as Bilal, Bilal is known to Federal Bureau of Investigation investigators as Abdul Rahim al Nashiri, the detainee. Al-Owhali used this same Yemeni passport to travel to Nairobi, Kenya, arriving on 2 August 1998."