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| Alleged bin Laden Aide: Stabbing Officer Was `Biggest Mistake in My Life' |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 09/23/2002 |
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A reputed top aide to Osama bin Laden ended four days of testimony by recounting his confession to a clergyman that stabbing a prison officer in the eye was 'the biggest mistake in my life' and that he wished he could donate his eye to the injured man. Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 44, seemed to be fighting back emotion in a pre-sentence hearing September 10 while describing the conversation with a prison cleric. Salim said he started crying when the chaplain referred to him as the prisoner who had stabbed officer Louis Pepe in the eye. The Nov. 1, 2000, attack injured Pepe's brain so badly that he cannot read or speak and will likely require 24-hour care for life. Salim said the clergyman asked him why he attacked Pepe in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. 'I told him, `This was the biggest mistake in my life. I never hurt anybody. And I feel very bad for that. I wish I could correct this mistake,'' Salim said. 'I told him I am ready to donate my eye for him.' Later, he added that he was 'praying for him every day.' Outside court, Pepe's sister, Eileen Pepe, accused Salim of lying and seeking sympathy to gain as little as 14 years in prison rather than the life in prison he could get if prosecutors succeed in proving the stabbing was related to terrorism. At the time of the attack, Salim was awaiting trial on conspiracy charges in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, attacks that killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans. A new trial date for him has not been set. Prosecutors said he attacked Pepe in a plot to take hostages and escape the prison, but he insisted during his testimony that he attacked the officer to get his keys so he could enter a locked attorney conference room and attack two of his lawyers. He said the lawyers had refused to quit the case even after he fired them and he believed attacking them was the only way to force them off the case. |
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