Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a native of Tanzania, was arrested in 2004 Opening statements are expected on Tuesday in the first civilian trial of a former Guantanamo inmate, Ahmed Ghailani, taking place in New York.
Tanzanian-born Ghailani, 36, denies helping al-Qaeda kill 224 people in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa.
Prosecutors will proceed without a key witness after a judge ruled last week that he could not testify.
The Obama administration hopes to hold similar civilian trials for other high-profile Guantanamo inmates.
These could include alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
But correspondents say matters have been complicated by District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision last week to exclude testimony from the prosecution’s top witness in the Ghailani trial.
Test case
The man, Hussein Abebe, was expected to testify that he had sold TNT used in the bombing of the US embassy Tanzania in August 1998 to Mr Ghailani.
But the judge ruled the witness could not testify as he had been named by Mr Ghailani while he was “under duress”.
Mr Ghailani was detained in Pakistan in 2004, taken to a secret CIA facility and then to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
He was subject to what the government refers to as “enhanced interrogation” by the CIA. His lawyers say he was tortured.
Mr Ghailani is accused of having purchased the vehicle and explosives used in the attack in Tanzania, and of having served as an aide to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
He denies the charges, but faces life in prison if convicted.
Whereas other Guantanamo detainees have been tried by military commissions, Mr Ghailani is the first prisoner to be tried in the civilian courts.
The case is seen as a test of the administration’s pledge to close the US military prison in Cuba by next January.
Proceedings were expected to begin on Tuesday with jury selection, followed by opening statements.
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