Former Guantanamo detainee gets life sentence for embassy bombing that killed Lamar soldier

A former Guantanamo detainee has received a life sentence for his role in the 1998 embassy bombings that resulted in numerous deaths, including that of Staff Sgt. Kenneth Hobson of Lamar.

The nearly simultaneous attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people and wounded thousands.
The defense had asked the judge for a lesser sentence, citing the extraordinary circumstances of Mr. Ghailani’s case, like the years he spent in detention in a so-called black site run by the C.I.A., where his lawyers say he was tortured.
But the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said that no matter how Mr. Ghailani was treated while in detention, “the impact on him pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror that he and his confederates caused.”
“It was a cold-blooded killing and maiming of innocent people on an enormous scale,” Judge Kaplan said. “The very purpose of the crime was to create terror by causing death and destruction.”