Ramzi Yousef

Categories: Al-Qaeda members | Federal Supermax Prisoners at Florence, Colorado | People convicted on terrorism charges | People imprisoned for terrorism | Prisoners serving life sentences | Mass murderers | Pakistani terrorists

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef or Ramzi Mohammed Yousef (also transliterated as Ramzi Yusuf, Ramzi Youssef) (Arabic: رمزى يوسف ), birth name possibly Abdul Basit Karim,(Arabic: عبد الباسط كريم ). He is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the first World Trade Center attack and a number of other terrorist attacks.

United States authorities say Yousef was an Al-Qaeda (Arabic: القاعده ) terrorist and agent. When finally captured Yousef cited sympathy for the Palestinian cause as the inspiration for his actions.

Yousef used Najy Awaita Haddad, Paul Vijay, Adam Sali, Adam Adel Ali, Adam Khan Baluch, Doctor Adel Sabah, Doctor Richard Smith, and 14 other aliases to obscure his identity.

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Biography

His nationality is disputed. The father of Yousef and the father of Yousef's uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, are believed to be from the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. Yousef was possibly raised in Kuwait.

It is believed that Yousef attended college at the Swansea Institute of Higher Eduction in the United Kingdom. He studied electrical engineering there. Starting in the late 1980s, Yousef took spring break trips to Pakistan.

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Terrorist Attack

In 1992, Yousef allegedly entered the United States with a false Iraqi passport. His companion Ahmed Ajaj, who also had a false passport, was arrested on the spot after his passport was proven false and instructions for making bombs was found in his luggage. INS holding cells were overcrowded, so Yousef was told to come back in one month. He travelled around New York and New Jersey and called Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a controversial Muslim preacher, via cell phone. Yousef got the manuals back from his partner.

He got conspirators and tried obtaining mixing chemicals to make a bomb. After a hospital stay from a car accident, Yousef got back the manuals from his car, which was in a police impound.

During an interview of Abdul Rahman Yasin that was held by CBS, Yasin says that Yousef originally wanted to bomb Jewish neighborhoods in New York City, New York. Yasin says that after he toured Crown Heights and Williamsburg, that Yousef changed his mind. Yasin alleges that Yousef was educated in bomb-making at a training camp in Peshawar.

Yousef then rented a Ryder van. On February 26, 1993, the van was loaded with explosives. Four cardboard boxes were packed into the back of the van, each containing a mixture of paper bags, newspapers, urea and nitric acid. Next to them were placed three red metal cylinders of compressed hydrogen, and four large containers of nitro-glycerine were loaded into the centre of the van, with Atlas Rockmaster blasting caps connected to each (Reeve 1999 pp 154).

The van was driven into the garage of the World Trade Center, where it exploded (in a later interrogation Yousef told investigators that the plan had been to take out structural parts of the foundation and make one tower collapse into the other). He fled to Pakistan hours later.

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After the attack

In the summer of 1993, he allegedly took up a contract initiated by members of Sipah-e-Sahaba to assassinate the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto. The plot failed when Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad were interrupted by police outside Bhutto’s residence as they planted the bomb. At this point Yousef decided to abort the bombing, however as they attempted to recover it the device blew up, injuring Yousef who was rushed to the hospital by Murad.

In 1994 Yousef reportedly travelled to South-East Asia and attempted to bomb the Israeli embassy in Bangkok with a device similar to the one he used in New York. En route to delivering the device the truck carrying the bomb collided with a motorcyclist, causing either Yousef or a co-conspirator to flee immediately, leaving the bomb behind.

Yousef is believed to have returned to Pakistan, and soon began plotting to fulfill part of his unsuccessful Bojinka plot. Using the same design as the bombs intended for Bojinka, Yousef planned to conceal the devices inside toy cars and plant them on United and Northwest flights out of Bangkok.

To carry out the attack he recruited Istaique Parker, a South African Muslim living in Pakistan. Parker flew to Bangkok with Yousef where they built the devices. Parker got cold feet at the last minute and could not check-in the luggage containing the bombs.

After returning to Pakistan, Parker became aware of the $2 million bounty being offered by the US government for the capture of Yousef. Shortly later Parker contacted the United States Embassy in Islamabad and became an informant.

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Arrested

On February 7, 1995, Yousef was arrested by two U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agents, and Pakistani Intelligence at the Su-Casa Guest House in Islamabad, Pakistan before he could rebase himself in Peshawar. He had been betrayed by a man he tried to recruit. When he was discovered, Yousef had chemical burns on his fingers.

Yousef was flown back to the United States and helicoptered into Manhattan. He was sent to a prison in New York, New York, United States, and held there until his trial. On September 5, 1996, Yousef, Murad, and Shah were convicted for planning Bojinka. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole. In court, Yousef said, "I am a terrorist, and I am proud of it."

In 1997, Osama bin Laden said during an interview that he did not know Yousef. Yousef's uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed allegedly took part in launching the September 11 Terrorist Attacks.

On November 12, 1997 Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing and in 1998 he was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the towers.

He is currently held in the high-security Supermax prison ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado. This is the same prison in which the Unabomber, and Terry Nichols, are to be incarcerated for life. It is also the prison that held Timothy McVeigh before his 2001 execution.

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Further reading

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External links