Suspect in 1998 embassy bombings pleads guilty

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Adel Abdel Bary, accused of helping plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, pleaded guilty Friday in a New York federal court.

Bary, 54, was charged with a number of counts, he pleaded guilty to threatening to kill by means of explosive and conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has not yet ruled on whether he will accept the pleas. Bary is also accused of hundreds of other charges, including the murder of each of the 224 people killed in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam attacks, as well as conspiracy to attack U.S. national defense facilities.

In court, Kaplan asked for further arguments before deciding if charges will be dropped, and gave lawyers for both sides a week to submit arguments. Bary, an Egyptian national, was scheduled to stand trial in November with alleged co-conspirator Khalid al-Fawwaz. Five other people have been convicted in trials related to the embassy attacks; each was sentenced to life imprisonment. Bary has spent over a decade in a British prison, awaiting extradition to the United States.