The son-in-law of Osama bin Laden acted as the al-Qaeda leader's right-hand man and appeared alongside the terror mastermind in a propaganda video just one day after the carnage of the 9/11 attacks, US prosecutors say.
Launching the most prominent 9/11-related terror trial held in New York to date, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday Suleiman Abu Ghaith had been one of bin Laden's key lieutenants in the days and months after the September 11, 2001 attacks which left 3000 people dead.
The Manhattan trial is taking place just streets from where the World Trade Center was reduced to burning rubble by two airliners hijacked by al-Qaeda suicide attackers
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The 48-year-old from Kuwait pleads not guilty to all three charges. He faces life in prison if convicted.
He is the most senior alleged al-Qaeda member to face trial in a US federal court rather than at Guantanamo Bay, which the White House has promised to close.
Wearing a dark suit, he sat impassively as prosecutors played the video in which he sat next to bin Laden and the current leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Afghanistan on September 12, 2001.
