Bojinka Plot - Murad's Confession

Murad's Confession

Sometime after police arrested Saeed, he had called Ramzi Yousef's cellular phone.

Saeed turned out to be Abdul Hakim Murad, who was sent to the apartment to retrieve the computer after the fire. Murad was sent to Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police. Murad at first taunted investigators. For sixty-seven days, he endured "tactical interrogation" by Filipino investigators.

According to journalists Marites Vitug and Glenda Gloria, authors of the book Under the Crescent Moon, agents hit Murad with a chair and club of wood when he did not talk. They forced water into his mouth, and crushed out lit cigarettes on his genitals. Murad's ribs were completely cracked. Agents were surprised that he survived. According to an investigator, he finally confessed out of fear of Jews after an agent masquerading as a member of the Mossad told him that he was being sent to Israel.

Murad admitted in his interrogations, "This is my — the best thing. I enjoy it", and "because the United States is the first country in this world making trouble for us, for Muslims and for our people."

He talked about the bombs. "Nobody can think that it's... explosive", he said, referring to the watches Ramzi Yousef planned to put on the airliners. He said that the nitroglycerin "which even if you'll put in the X-ray, you will never, nobody can" detect it.

Murad confessed that he was on a quest to be a martyr. He confessed to being the hijacker as part of Phase II of his plan. Murad was extradited to the United States on April 12, 1995. His testimony helped convict Yousef.