More than 220 people died in the 1988 bombings of
US embassies in east Africa
A Libyan man seized earlier this month in a US
raid in Tripoli has pleaded not guilty in a New York
court to two US embassy bombings in 1998.
Abu Anas al-Liby, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-
Hamed al-Ruqai, entered the plea through his attorney.
He is accused of links with al-Qaeda and involvement in
the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
which killed more than 220 people.
Mr Liby, aged 49, was indicted by a New York grand
jury in 2000.
'Appropriate target'
On Tuesday, Mr Liby appeared handcuffed in New
York's federal court, which was packed with reporters.
Mr Liby, who had a bushy grey beard, listened as
presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan read out the list of
charges against him.
He then entered the not guilty plea, and the judge
adjourned the hearing until 22 October.
The suspect was led out of the courtroom after the
judge said he must be kept in detention as a flight risk.
There has been anger in Libya over the US commando
raid on 5 October which seized the senior al-Qaeda
suspect. Many saw the raid as a breach of Libyan
sovereignty.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has defended the
capture of Mr Liby, calling him a "legal and appropriate
target".
The Libyan government has demanded an explanation
for the raid from the US. Its justice minister summoned
the US ambassador to the country for questioning last
week.
Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said Libya was "keen
on prosecuting any Libyan citizen inside Libya". Mr
Zeidan was briefly held captive by militiamen several
days after the raid but the motive for the abduction
remains unclear.
Intelligence officials interrogated Mr Liby aboard the
USS San Antonio in the Mediterranean for a week after
his capture, according to reports.
Mr Liby's sons have claimed that Libyans were involved
in his kidnap, which Tripoli denies.
Most wanted
On 7 August 1998, trucks laden with explosives
detonated almost simultaneously outside the US
embassy in Nairobi and America's diplomatic mission
in Dar es Salaam.
More than 200 people died in the Kenyan capital and at
least 11 in Dar es Salaam. Thousands of people were
injured in the bombings.
The majority of the victims were civilians.
Mr Liby had been on the FBI's most wanted list for
more than a decade, with a $5m (£3.1m) bounty on
his head.
The charges against him include discussing a possible
al-Qaeda attack against the US embassy in the Kenyan
capital, Nairobi, in retaliation for the American military
intervention in Somalia.
The former computer programmer is also alleged to
have carried out "visual and photographic surveillance"
of the building in 1993 and "reviewed files" concerning
possible attacks on Western interests in East Africa.
A second US commando raid on 5 October failed to
capture its target - Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, a
Kenyan al-Shabab commander also known as Ikrima.
The al-Shabab militant group says it carried out last
month's attack on the Westgate shopping centre in
Nairobi, which left at least 67 people dead.
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