After Years of Secrecy, Terrorist To Be Sentenced

An Al Qaeda member who secretly pleaded guilty more than five years ago to planning bomb attacks on American embassies will emerge from the shadows today to receive a lengthy prison sentence.

Mohammed Mansour Jabarah will face a likely sentence of life in prison for a brief career in terror that included training with Osama bin Laden and unsuccessfully plotting to bomb embassies in the Philippines and Singapore, prosecutors said in court papers.

The Canadian citizen's appearance in a Manhattan courtroom will be his first time in public since his detention in 2002, and yesterday marked the first time in which the court system made public any details of his case, which has been under seal since his arrest.

After his arrest, he briefly lived in an FBI-arranged housing facility, working as a collaborator, until agents searched his quarters and found weapons, bomb-making instructions, and materials suggesting he intended to murder some of the agents.