L'Houssaine Kherchtou was born on 15 May 1964 and was an early initiate in al-Qaeda, joining the militant group in 1991.
15 Facts About L'Houssaine Kherchtou
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou disembarked in Karachi and flew to Islamabad, and onward to Peshawar; there he stayed in Bait al-Ansar before being spirited across the Afghan border through Mirahshah and enrolled in the al-Farouq camp.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou later identified two trainers of the camp, Shuayb and Mushin Musa Matwalli Atwah.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou fought in the Afghan Civil War for two months, before being moved to train new Mujahideen at the Abu Bakr Siddique camp, which he has contradictorily placed in Hayatabad, Pakistan and Khost, Afghanistan.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou's apartment was transformed into a dark room where they developed photographs of potential Kenyan targets for bombing.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou went to Sayyid al-Masri and asked him to cover his wife's medical bills, and was upset upon being informed there was no money to spare and al-Masri suggested he take her to a Muslim charitable hospital for free treatment.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou angrily demanded to know "if it was your wife or your daughter, you would take her there", and later recounted that he was angry enough he would have shot al-Masri if he had a gun at the time.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou disobeyed orders to relocate to Afghanistan, claiming he was concerned about the education his children would receive in such a country, although he is believed to have still felt snubbed after being refused financial compensation for his wife's operation, and subsequently "began to drift away" from al-Qaeda.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou moved back to Kenya and developed a relationship with Ali Mohamed and by happenstance, he claims he ran into "Haroun" and "Ahmed", both of whom he had known during his time in al-Qaeda.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou accompanied American double-agent Ali Mohamed to Senegal, where the pair of them scouted French facilities as possible bombing targets.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou was arrested as he tried to leave Nairobi four days after the 1998 United States embassy bombings, and handed over to the British.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou had the Moroccan government issue notice that the immigration status of Kherchtou's children had been called into question and he was needed in-person to resolve the issue.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou agreed to be flown back to the United States to testify against the four suspected al-Qaeda members in custody following the embassy bombings, after Cloonan suggested to him that he "pray on" the matter and then give his decision.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou suggested that al-Qaeda relied on diamond smuggling to raise funds for their operations.
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L'Houssaine Kherchtou was accused of "contradicting" himself after he said he knew that Wadih el-Hage was a member of al-Qaeda, but under cross-examination admitting he had told the British intelligence agents that he didn't know el-Hage's allegiance two years earlier, and telling the FBI the same thing only six months prior to the trial.