A prosecutor is telling jurors in closing arguments at a New York terrorism trial that the defendant was a top aide to Osama bin Laden nearly a decade before deadly bombings at two U.S. embassies in Africa.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley made the comment Wednesday as two days of closings began in the trial of Khaled al-Fawwaz.

Al-Fawwaz’s lawyer isn’t expected to speak until Thursday.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty. He did not testify during the three-week trial.

Buckley told the anonymous jury that al-Fawwaz was the leader of an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.

He said the defendant later served bin Laden in a Kenya terror cell before the 1998 bombings of embassies that killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans.

(AP)