## Facts

- The prosecution involved multiple defendants charged for the August 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
- The indictment alleged the defendants were members or associates of an international terrorist organization led by Usama Bin Laden.
- Charges included conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, bombing U.S. embassies, and related homicide and property-destruction offenses.
- The indictment included 223 murder counts and other offenses; several defendants were foreign nationals, and some were in U.S. custody.
- Defendant Mohamed Sadeek Odeh filed a pretrial motion to dismiss various counts; other defendants joined.
- The motion argued the charged statutes did not apply to conduct abroad, and that applying them to foreign nationals for overseas acts exceeded congressional power and violated Fifth Amendment due process.

## Issues

1. Whether the charged criminal statutes were intended to apply extraterritorially to conduct outside the United States, including conduct by foreign nationals.
2. Whether recognized bases of jurisdiction under domestic and international law permitted U.S. prosecution of overseas acts targeting U.S. nationals, property, or governmental interests.
3. Whether applying these statutes extraterritorially violated Fifth Amendment due process by lacking “fair warning” or being fundamentally unfair.
4. Whether Congress had constitutional authority to criminalize the defendants’ overseas conduct as charged.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part.
- The court held that it had jurisdiction over most charges because Congress expressly or by necessary implication intended key terrorism statutes to apply abroad.
- Relying on statute-specific interpretation, the court sustained the bulk of the indictment, particularly where limiting application to domestic conduct would defeat the statutes’ protective aims.
- The court found U.S. jurisdiction consistent with international law principles, emphasizing the protective principle and, where applicable, jurisdiction based on crimes against U.S. nationals.
- The court rejected due process objections, concluding that defendants who targeted U.S. embassies and personnel had sufficient notice that such conduct was criminal and would foreseeably be prosecuted by the United States.
- The court dismissed certain counts where the statute did not support extraterritorial application or where the government’s jurisdictional theory was inadequate on close reading.

## Legal Principles

- There is a general presumption that federal statutes apply only domestically unless Congress indicates otherwise, but criminal statutes protecting U.S. governmental interests may be read to apply abroad under a statute-specific analysis.
- Under the Bowman framework, extraterritorial application may be inferred when limiting a criminal statute to domestic conduct would frustrate its purpose, especially for offenses directed at U.S. government functions, property, or security.
- International law permits jurisdiction over overseas conduct that threatens a state’s security or governmental operations (protective principle), and may also support jurisdiction over offenses against a state’s nationals (nationality principle).
- Fifth Amendment due process is satisfied where the assertion of jurisdiction is not arbitrary and defendants have fair notice in the sense that the conduct is plainly criminal and prosecution by the affected state is reasonably foreseeable; specific knowledge of U.S. statutory text is not required.
- Congress has constitutional authority to criminalize certain extraterritorial conduct when it targets U.S. nationals, government facilities or personnel, or implicates national security and foreign relations interests.

## Conclusion

The court largely sustained a terrorism indictment arising from overseas embassy bombings, holding that many charged statutes reach extraterritorial conduct aimed at U.S. interests and that prosecuting foreign nationals in these circumstances comports with both due process and accepted jurisdictional principles, while dismissing discrete counts lacking sufficient statutory or jurisdictional support.


United States v. Bin Laden, 92 F. Supp. 2d 189 (S.D.N.Y. 2000)