An al-Qaeda suspect accused in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa was transferred from Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday for prosecution in a New York court, the Justice Department said.

Ahmed Ghailani will become the first Guantanamo detainee to go on trial in a civilian US court. He was to make an appearance in federal court in Manhattan later in the day, the department said in a statement.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian who had been held at the US naval base in Cuba since September 2006, arrived in New York early Tuesday under escort from the US Marshals Service.

The Justice Department said he faced 286 counts, including conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda to kill Americans anywhere in the world, and separate charges of murder for the deaths of each of the 224 people killed in the August 7, 1998, US Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.

Several of the counts against Ghailani, including murder of US employees at the embassies, carry maximum sentences of death or life in prison. “The Justice Department has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system, and we will bring that experience to bear in seeking justice in this case,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in the statement.