The fate of the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in a US civilian court will soon be in the hands of a jury.

Tuesday afternoon the defense finished closing arguments. Attorney Peter Quijano told jurors that 36 year old Ahmed Ghailani is a “dupe” who had no knowledge his actions would lead to the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Quijano said “call him a fall guy, call him a pawn, call him ‘set up like a bowling pin,’ in the immortal words of Jerry Garcia, but don’t call him guilty.”

Quijano spent nearly four hours tearing apart the government’s case attacking forensic evidence and the credibility of witnesses. Last week the defense spent less than half an hour presenting its case and never called a single witness.

During his closing argument Quijano repeatedly referred to Ghailani as a “kid” who anxious to make money acted as a middleman or broker who unknowingly helped Al Qaeda operatives to purchase a truck and gas tanks that were turned into the bomb that destroyed the US embassy in Dar es Salaam.

Quijano also told jurors the government’s forensic evidence was contaminated and could not be trusted. He asked jurors to question why the Tanzanian National Police were in the US “shadowing” some witnesses, suggesting the witnesses offered testimony to avoid trouble when they returned back home.

He summed up the government’s case as “smoke and mirrors.”

During a late afternoon rebuttal Assistant US Attorney, Michael Farbiarz, said Ghailani was not the “dupe” described by the defense, but someone who knowingly committed “mass murder.”  He said witness testimony contradicted defense claims that Ghailani worked as an innocent  “broker” who helped Al Qaeda operatives buy the equipment used to make the bomb.

The prosecution reminded jurors that Ghailani fled Tanzania one day before the fatal attack and never contacted authorities about his alleged role as a “dupe” who helped kill 224 people.

“He dropped everything in his life, not because he was duped but because that’s the price of admission to Al Qaeda,” said Farbiarz.