The father of the British rapper suspected of beheading American journalist James Foley admitted Friday to conspiring with Osama bin Laden in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa that left 224 people dead, including 12 Americans.
Adel Abdel Bary — the father of suspected ISIS terrorist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, also known as “John the Beatle” — copped a guilty plea in Manhattan federal court to charges of making a threat to use an explosive device and conspiracy to murder Americans.
“I agreed with others … to kill American citizens anywhere in the world — either civilian or military,” the elder Bary told Judge Lewis Kaplan while shaking his head, sobbing and wiping his eyes with tissues.
When asked afterward if the 54-year-old Bary’s decision to plead guilty has anything to do with “his son’s situation” — or if he’s spoken about his son’s alleged terror acts — Bary’s lawyer, Andrew Patel, declined comment.
The younger Bary, 23, fled his million-dollar home in London last year, reportedly to wage jihad in Syria, and recently tweeted a picture of himself holding a severed head.
Papa Bary had faced life in prison after being charged with more than 200 counts of premeditated murder for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
The plea deal, however, was not immediately accepted.
Kaplan expressed shock upon learning that the deal — which calls for a maximum jail sentence of up to 25 years — could be significantly shaved by crediting the elder Bary for 14 years he previously spent behind bars in the United Kingdom and another two years for time he’s been in custody in America awaiting trial.
“You could well appreciate why I have questions in my mind,” Kaplan told prosecutors and Bary’s lawyers.
Kaplan said he couldn’t rubber-stamp the plea deal and asked both sides to submit briefs outlining why they believe that giving Bary such a big break in jail credit, roughly 16 years time served — and limiting his remaining prison time to only nine years — is in the best interest of justice. He said he will decide whether to accept the guilty plea at a later date.
Bary’s guilty plea comes two months before he was set to face trial alongside two co-defendants, Libyan Anas al-Liby and Saudi national Khalid al-Fawwaz.
Bary admitted that he and Fawwaz helped disseminate statements of responsibility for a terror group to the media and also threatened “future deaths” by “explosion” if demands were not met.
After his son was born in 1991, the native Egyptian applied for and was granted political asylum in Britain, where his family joined him two years later.
The indictment says he leased a London office that was transformed into bin Laden’s “media information office.”
Bary was extradited to the US in 2012 along with handless hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was convicted at trial earlier this year of conspiring to kill Americans.
At the time of Bary’s extradition, Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara referred to him as one of three men “at the nerve centers of al Qaeda’s acts of terror,” adding that “they caused blood to be shed, lives to be lost, and families to be shattered.”
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of bin Laden who was convicted of separate terror charges in March, faces life in prison when he’s sentenced Tuesday.