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Jury gets case of bin Laden son-in-law

In this courtroom sketch, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (right), the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, testified at his trial recently on charges that he conspired to kill Americans. The jury deliberated for four hours on Tuesday

NEW YORK — Jurors began deliberations on Tuesday in the terrorism trial of Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law but ended the day without reaching a verdict on charges that he conspired to kill Americans and aid Al Qaeda as its spokesman after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The jury deliberated more than four hours in Manhattan in the case involving Sulaiman Abu Ghaith before deciding not to take US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan up on his offer to stay a little later if they wished.

‘‘We are all tired and mentally exhausted and want to break for the day,’’ the jurors said in a note.

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Before starting deliberations just before noon, Kaplan read the applicable law that will guide them toward a verdict in the case of the Kuwaiti clergyman who warned in widely circulated videos in the weeks after the attacks that the ‘‘storm of airplanes’’ would not end.

Abu Ghaith could face life in prison if he is convicted of the charges.

The deliberations came a day after Assistant US Attorney John Cronan told jurors that bin Laden turned to Abu Ghaith the evening of the Sept. 11 attacks to make videos that would ‘‘help replenish Al Qaeda’s stock of suicide terrorists by driving new crops of young men from around the globe to Al Qaeda in its war with America.’’

‘‘So just hours after four planes came crashing into our country, amid Al Qaeda’s savage success and the utter chaos of that terrible day, Osama bin Laden turned to this man,’’ Cronan said, pointing at the bearded defendant, who calmly listened to an Arabic interpreter through headphones.

Abu Ghaith’s attorney, Stanley Cohen, countered that his client was not guilty, saying ‘‘there’s zero evidence’’ that the 48-year-old former teacher knew of the conspiracies the government claimed he knew about.

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Citing several videos shown to the jury in which Abu Ghaith — sometimes sitting with bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda leaders against a mountainous backdrop — railed against America, Cohen warned jurors not to let prosecutors ‘‘intimidate you and to frighten you into returning verdicts not based upon evidence, but fear.’’

Those videos, though, were portrayed by the government as the centerpiece of their case.

One 2002 Al Qaeda propaganda video — titled ‘‘Convoy of Martyrs’’ — features Abu Ghaith preaching over still-horrific scenes of a plane flying into one of the World Trade Center towers.

Another shows the defendant looking at bin Laden admiringly as the Al Qaeda leader boasts that he knew the attack would make both towers fall.

Cohen, though, said there was no evidence his client had a senior position with Al Qaeda.

He accused prosecutors of seeking to inflame jurors by repeatedly showing them the martyr video and by endlessly referencing 9/11, even though Abu Ghaith isn’t charged in the attack.

The video ‘‘was designed, it was intended to sweep you away in anguish, in pain, and to ask for retaliation,’’ Cohen said.

Abu Ghaith was brought to New York last year after his capture in Turkey.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.