NEW YORK, SEPT 29: A federal judge has set a target date of September 5, 2000, for the trial of fugitive Osama bin Laden and some of his followers charged with planning to kill US nationals abroad.US district judge Leonard Sand said on Tuesday that the trial will not take place before the Tuesday after labour day of next year in Manhattan Federal Court. He set the target date after federal prosecutors said it was the earliest they could proceed.Assistant US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald estimated that the government's side of the trial will take about six months, excluding jury selection.Sand told defence lawyers that while the date could be changed, they should not take on any work that would conflict with plans for next year's trial.Fifteen people have been charged in the case alleging that bin Laden ordered the August 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds of people and injuring 4,000.The defendants also are charged with conspiring to kill members of the Americanmilitary stationed in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Five of those defendants are being held in the United States.Bin Laden remains a fugitive and is on the FBI's ``10 most wanted'' list. The government is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. He has been living in Afghanistan for several years as a ``guest'' of the country's Taliban Islamic movement.Taliban officials have rejected US calls to extradite him, saying they have no such legal procedure with Washington, and have consistently denied his involvement in acts of terrorism.Prosecutors allege that bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for the killing of US citizens and financed the embassy bombings and other attacks on americans.The charges allege that the defendants conspired with bin Laden's group, Al Qaeda, which functioned on its own and through other organisations.
