The judge in the case of the man accused of bombing US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania denied Monday a request by defense lawyers to declare a mistrial after one of the jurors asked to be removed from the case, Fox News Channel reported.
Lawyers for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani sent a letter to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan saying they believed the jury would not be able to reach a verdict and that there is no just cause for removing the juror.
Kaplan denied the motion and ruled that the juror will not be excused from the case.
The move for a mistrial came shortly after one of the jurors said she was being “attacked” by other jurors for her opinion and asked to be replaced Monday, the New York Post reported.
Juror number 12, a female, sent a note to the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court, claiming she had reached a verdict and would not be swayed.
“Your honor, at this point I am secure with my conclusion,” she wrote. “[I] have come to my conclusion and my conclusion is not going to change. [I] feel am being attacked for my conclusion. [I am] asking to be exchanged for alternate juror.”
In court, Kaplan read the note aloud and did not dismiss the juror. He told the jury to keep working towards a decision and sent them back to continue their deliberations.
Jurors have been deliberating the case of since last Tuesday.
The former Guantanamo Bay detainee had been charged with 285 criminal counts for participating in a conspiracy to commit two deadly bombing attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 that killed 224 people.
The trial was considered a major test of the Obama administration’s preference for trying terrorists in civilian court.
Ghailani faces up to life in prison.