Twenty years later, bomb blast victims still pushing for compensation

Ms Hellen Adhiambo, one of the victims of the 1998 US embassy bombing, at the site in Nairobi on August 7, 2014. The victims of bomb blast are still pushing for compensation. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The US Agency for International Development did provide a total of nearly $45 million (Sh4.5 billion) to the families of 173 Kenyan citizens killed or injured in the 1998 explosion.
  • Arguments in support of compensation to Kenyan victims are based partly on claims that the US State Department failed to properly secure the embassy building that stood on Moi Avenue in Nairobi.
  • Court rulings over the years have ordered payments to African victims from funds that have been obtained from al-Qaeda or from countries said to have abetted the bombings.

Twenty years after the twin bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Kenyans and Tanzanians victimised by the attacks are still struggling to gain compensation through the US judicial and legislative systems.

"We're not giving up," declared Washington attorney Phillip Musolino who represents 538 Kenyan citizens affected by the Nairobi bombing. "If it takes 30 years, we'll find a way." "The Kenyans have been as gracious and as patient as possible," Mr Musolino added.

Court rulings over the years have either excluded non-US citizens from potential damage awards or have ordered payments to African victims from funds that have been obtained from al-Qaeda, the author of the attacks, or from countries said to have abetted the bombings.

The hundreds of Kenyans and Tanzanians harmed by the blasts and unaffiliated with the US government have thus been unable to gain compensation through the courts, Mr Musolino said.

KENYANS KILLED

The US Agency for International Development did provide a total of nearly $45 million (Sh4.5 billion) to the families of 173 Kenyan citizens killed or injured in the explosion that occurred on August 7, 1998. That assistance mainly came in the form of coverage for medical expenses.

Mr Musolino said efforts to aid Kenyan victims are now focused on the US Congress. Lobbyists are specifically seeking to persuade legislators to amend a law passed in 2015 that provided payments to US citizens who were seized as hostages in Iran in 1979.

The compensation handed out last year came from fines paid to the US by the Paris-based BNP Paribas bank as a penalty for violating US sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba. US victims of the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania were also deemed eligible for awards from a $1 billion portion of the fines.

The envisioned amendment would enable Kenyan and Tanzanian victims to share in the damage awards.

MOI AVENUE

"We're hopeful of getting it passed," Mr Musolino said. "Kenya is regarded in Congress as a friend of the US, so we have to persuade people that this friendship should include compensation."

He acknowledged, however, that there is no indication that Congress will act soon — or ever — to change the law.

Arguments in support of compensation to Kenyan victims are based partly on claims that the US State Department failed to properly secure the embassy building that stood on Moi Avenue in Nairobi.

Prudence Bushnell, US ambassador to Kenya at the time of the bombing, has said she repeatedly alerted officials in Washington that the embassy was vulnerable to terrorist attack. No action was taken in response to her warnings.

"As ambassador, I was responsible for security," Ms Bushnell wrote in her contribution to a set of 20th anniversary reflections on the attack published in the Foreign Service Journal. "And while I had pushed and pushed to get Washington’s attention to our vulnerabilities, I remain keenly aware that I failed."

INJURIES

Meanwhile, more than 350 victims of the attack have signed a petition to go to court to press the Kenyan and the US governments to substantially award them for their losses and injuries.

Mr George Ngige, the chairman of the August 7, 1998 Bomb Blast Victims Association of Kenya, said they have been forced to take the action following a perceived reluctance by the government to follow up on the matter.

“There is no goodwill from the government to listen to us over this matter,” he said yesterday on the phone. “Whenever we have approached the government, they have always claimed that there is little it can do to press the US government to compensate us properly.”

Mr Ngige was outside the bell-bottomed Cooperative Bank building on that chilly August morning 20 years ago when al-Qaeda militants detonated a massive car bomb outside the American embassy.

“I was suddenly lifted up in the air (when the bomb went off). I thought the end of the world had come,” remembered Mr Ngige. The blast sent millions of shards of glass flying in the air, one of which sheared off flesh his left leg.

MONEY RECOVERED

As a result, he now walks with a crutch and still feels pain in his neck. “I still need checkup for my injuries and medicine for pain, but I don’t have money for that,” he said.

In April 2014, a judge in Washington DC found that 23 Tanzanians and Americans killed or injured in the attack in Dar es Salaam were entitled to $957 million in damages.

That judgement was rendered against the governments of Iran and Sudan, which were found to have abetted al Qaeda’s attacks.

In August 2014, a court in New York awarded some six Kenyan victims of the blast $1 billion (Sh100 billion). However, the catch was that this money will come from whatever assets of al-Qaeda that can be recovered.

“It is unclear whether plaintiffs will ever recover their damages in this case,” said Justice John Facciola, who made the ruling in favour of Mr Castro Otiende, Mr Protus Manyasa Buluma, Mr Dipak L. Shah, Mr Wilfred Nderitu, Mr Charles Makori Mogi and Mr Kioko Muema.

PROSTATE CANCER

Mr Ngige, who is now suffering from prostate cancer, is still hopeful that some sort of agreement can be worked out between Kenyan and the US governments to finally settle the compensation issue.

“If there was political goodwill from our leaders, yes, it can happen,” he said. “But our government is not Kenyan. A legal officer from the Attorney-General’s office recently told us to drop our claim and in return the government would provide us NHIF (National Hospital Insurance Fund) cards for free for our medical attention.”

Nine individuals have been convicted in the US on charges related to the two bombings. All have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Another 10 persons accused of involvement in the attacks have been killed or have died of natural causes. The most prominent member of this group is Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda who was killed in Pakistan by US commandos in 2011.

Three alleged bombing conspirators indicted by US prosecutors remain at large. One of them is Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took charge of al-Qaeda following bin Laden's death.