Ramzi Ahmed Yousef

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef ( Arabic رمزي أحمد يوسف, DMG Ramzī Aḥmad Yūsuf , also Ramsi Ahmed Yussef , Ramzi Mohammed Yousef , Abdul Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim ; * May 20, 1967 in Kuwait ) is one of the masterminds behind the bomb attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 . He was arrested on February 7, 1995 in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and is serving a 240-year prison sentence after extradition to a US detention center.

Youth and education

Yousef is a citizen of Kuwait and has both Pakistani and Palestinian ancestors. He is a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , a former high-ranking member of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization and chief planner of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . His father, an engineer by profession , as well as his uncle Chalid Sheikh Mohammed, both come from the Pakistani province of Balochistan .

He grew up in an environment of Palestinian minorities in Kuwait, where he also went to school. Yousef speaks several languages, including Arabic , Baloch , English, and Urdu .

In 1989 he graduated as an electrical engineer from Swansea Metropolitan University (formerly West Glamorgan Institute ) in Swansea, UK . There he also joined a splinter group of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood .

Bomb attack on the World Trade Center

→ Main article : Bomb attack on the World Trade Center in 1993

entry

On September 1, 1992, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef traveled to the United States with Ahmed Ajaj - a participant in the attacks - with an invalid Iraqi passport . Yousef's companion, Ajaj, was arrested because he had various suspicious items in his luggage. Not only was a badly forged Swedish passport noticed , but also instructions with tips on “how best to lie to the US immigration authorities” . He was also found to have a book with bomb- making instructions and videos of suicide bombers . Yousef himself was held back by the then INS for review. He applied for political asylum and got a hearing that went well.

Preparations

On November 9, 1992, he was picked up by Jersey City Police on a routine check-up. After failing to provide identification, he claimed he had lost his passport. His name is Abdul Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim , a Pakistani citizen and grew up in Kuwait. As a result, on December 31, 1992 , the Pakistani consulate in New York issued a temporary passport under the name Abdul Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim , which Yousef had given the police on record.

With this new passport in his luggage, Yousef traveled back and forth between the two states of New York and New Jersey and kept in touch with the Egyptian militant cleric Umar Abd ar-Rahman via mobile phone . He also had contact with other militant extremists in Balochistan.

Ahmed Ajaj, however, kept in touch with Yousef from prison. Although a judge released the incriminating evidence against Ajaj in December 1992, which was available for collection at the FBI's New York office, Ajaj did not take the opportunity to retrieve the bomb-making book. In an encrypted telephone conversation with Yousef, he advised him to leave the documents with the FBI rather than jeopardize the plot of the assassination.

It was around this time that Yousef began sourcing the chemicals to build the 700 kg urea nitrate bomb. Helpers were Mohammed A. Salameh and Mahmud Abouhalima , both involved in the murder of the main suspect El Sayyid Nosair on Rabbi Meir Kahane . In just a short time, between late 1992 and early 1993, Yousef was responsible for three vehicle accidents on the road. When he himself was injured in one of these accidents and hospitalized, he ordered the chemicals from the hospital room that he needed to build the bomb.

In a later interview by the television company CBS with Abdul Rahman Yasin , one of the co-conspirators of the plot, the latter testified that Ramzi originally had the plan to carry out an assassination attempt on the Jewish quarter in New York, which he later changed. Yasin said that Ramzi had been trained in the use of explosives and bomb- making at a terrorist training camp near the Pakistani city of Peshawar .

A few days before the attack, Yousef rented a moving van from the rental company Ryder System , which he packed with the bomb on February 26, 1993, the day of the attack. Then he drove into the underground parking garage of the northern WTC tower and parked the vehicle, whereupon the explosion occurred shortly afterwards.

Six people lost their lives in the attack and well over 1,000 were injured.

Escape

Yousef sent a letter of assurance to the New York Times . Just hours later, Youssef was already on a plane fleeing to Pakistan. In the later investigation files after his arrest, he told the authorities that his plan was hoping that the explosion would damage the foundations of the north tower in such a way that it would fall on the south tower and carry it with it.

Assassination of Philippine Airlines Flight 434

→ Main article : Philippine Airlines Flight 434

On December 10, 1994, as part of Operation Bojinka , Yousef, as Armaldo Forlani, smuggled a bomb aboard Philippine Airlines flight 434 , which was supposed to detonate the aircraft's fuel tank. One passenger was killed when the bomb exploded; several others were seriously injured. Due to a miscalculation by the assassins, however, the machine remained airworthy and was able to land; no other passengers were killed. During the investigation that followed, the authorities happened upon Yousef's apartment in Manila , as he and an accomplice had accidentally set off a fire there during experiments with chemicals, as a result of which the porter had alerted the fire brigade and police . Yousef was able to escape at first, but several forged passports with different names were found in his apartment , as well as evidence that he had something to do with the plane attack, as well as evidence that he wanted to kill the Pope .

arrest

Shortly after the April 21, 1993 attack, the FBI listed Yousef as the 436th most wanted person on their list. On February 7, 1995, the Pakistani military intelligence service, ISI, in collaboration with the United States' Bureau of Diplomatic Security , succeeded in arresting Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in Islamabad. ISI agents and members of the US Mobile Security Division - a tactical special unit of the US State Department's security service - overwhelmed Yousef in a surprise attack on the Su-Casa Guest House in Islamabad.

Yousef was betrayed by Istaique Parker , a man Yousef had tried unsuccessfully to recruit for his purposes. Parker got the tip that led to the arrest Yousef, a reward of two million US dollars .

Condemnation

On November 12, 1997, Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and sentenced to 240 years imprisonment for subversive conspiracy.

He has since been in ADX Florence in Florence in the US state of Colorado detained. The handcuffs that Ramzi Yousef wore after his arrest in Pakistan are on display in the FBI internal museum of the J. Edgar Hoover Building , the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC .

Pseudonyms

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was known for using a number of false names, including a. the following:

• Ramzi Yousef Ahmad, Rasheed Yousef, Ramzi Ahmad Yousef, Kamal Abraham, Muhammud Azan, Ramzi Yousef, Rashid Rashid, Kamal Ibraham, Ramzi Yousef Ahmed, and Abdul Bassett .

He used other pseudonyms as a Moroccan with a forged passport in Manila , Philippines in 1995 :

• Najy Awaita Haddad, Dr. Paul Vijay, Adam Sali, Adam Adel Ali, Adam Khan Baluch, Doctor Adel Sabah, Dr. Richard Smith, Azan Muhammed, Adam Ali Qasim, Armaldo Forlani, Muhammad Ali Baloch, Adam Baloch, Kamal Ibraham, Abraham Kamal, Khuram Khan .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE0D9123AF937A35757C0A96E958260 New York Times, April 4, 1998 (Driver Gets 240 Years in Prison for Bombing of Trade Center)
2. ↑ http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/211203.pdf Hamm, Mark S (September, 2005). Research report submitted to the United States Department of Justice, Grant # 2003 DT CX 0002.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Lance (September 7, 2004). Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror. William Morrow. ISBN 0-06-054355-8
4. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/31/60minutes/main510795.shtml
5. ↑ Simon Reeve (June 27, 2002). The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism. Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55553-509-7
6. ^ Locate a Federal Inmate . Federal Bureau of Prisons . 2007. Retrieved on August 28, 2007: “1. RAMZI AHMED YOUSEF 03911-000 39 White M LIFE FLORENCE ADMAX USP "