Former Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has been sentenced to life in prison in connection with the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Ghailani was acquitted on 284 of 285 counts in November, but his lone conviction on a minor conspiracy charge carried a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life. Defense attorneys had argued for leniency in part over Ghailani’s torture in a CIA prison. Federal prosecutor Preet Bharara praised the sentence.

Preet Bharara: “Ahmed Ghailani, a remorseless terrorist, mass murderer and al-Qaeda operative, will spend the rest of his life in prison where he belongs. That is the right result. That is the just result. As we said in court on the day this trial began, Ghailani was a vital member of the East African terror cell that murdered 224 innocent people and wounded thousands more in the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in Africa. Finally, twelve-and-a-half years after those devastating and despicable attacks, Ahmed Ghailani will pay for his crimes.”

Ghailani was the first former Guantánamo prisoner tried in a U.S. civilian court. The defense has argued Ghailani was a pawn unwittingly exploited by al-Qaeda. After the sentencing, Ghailani’s attorney, Peter Quijano, said he would appeal.

Peter Quijano: “When Ahmed Ghailani was arrested in 2004 on a pending indictment in this district, his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was delayed for over five years. At the end of this trial, Ahmed Ghailani was found not guilty 283 times. On that day, his lawyers, to a person, believed that was the right verdict because we believed then that he was innocent. Our client was just sentenced to life without parole in a federal institution, a federal prison, and today we still believe our client is innocent.”