NEW YORK (AP) His hair and beard are wild and woolly, his eyes dark and hollow, his frame bony.

Though 40, he claims he"s a college freshman living in the 1970s and can"t remember his wife and children. He managed a tire shop in Texas suburbia but has trotted the globe, with stops in Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Meet Wadih El-Hage U.S. citizen and one of four men going on trial today in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

Prosecutors say El-Hage was a personal secretary to wealthy Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the alleged engineer of the attacks that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, in Kenya and Tanzania.

If convicted, he could face life in prison.

Besides El-Hage, the other defendants include Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 35, of Jordan who allegedly told investigators that shortly before the bombing he had met with an explosives expert who led a Kenyan terrorism cell.

He also faces a potential life sentence if convicted.

Two others Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-"Owhali, 24, of Saudi Arabia and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, of Tanzania could be sentenced to death.

All the defendants have been portrayed as militants willing to go to any extreme to carry out bin Laden"s holy war, or jihad, against the "enemies of God."

But El-Hage stands apart.

For one, he is the only U.S. citizen among the defendants. Former co-workers and neighbors in Arlington, Texas, described him as a hard-working family man.

He also has distinguished himself since his 1998 arrest by complaining loudly and constantly that he is an innocent victim of guilt-by-association, jailhouse abuse and, most recently, mental illness and amnesia.

Frustrated by conditions in a federal lock-up, he jumped up in court last summer and dashed at U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand before being tackled by federal marshals.