Arrest, Conviction and Prison Life
Following a tip-off from Istaique Parker, on February 7, 1995, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service Officers, including Bill Miller and Jeff Riner, raided room number 16 in the Su-Casa Guest House in Islamabad, Pakistan, and captured Yousef before he could move to Peshawar. Parker was paid $2 million for the information leading to Yousef's capture (Rewards for Justice – RFJ). During the raid, agents found Delta Air Lines and United Airlines flight schedules and bomb components in children's toys, and Yousef was found to have chemical burns on his fingers.
Yousef was sent to a prison in New York City and held there until his trial. In court Yousef said, "Yes, I am a terrorist, and proud of it as long as it is against the U.S. government and against Israel, because you are more than terrorists; you are the one who invented terrorism and using it every day. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites." On September 5, 1996, Yousef and two co-conspirators were convicted for their role in the Bojinka plot and were sentenced to life in prison without parole. U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Duffy referred to Yousef as "an apostle of evil" before recommending that the entire sentence be served in solitary confinement.
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 World Trade Center towers.
The judge sentenced Yousef to 240 years for the Trade Center attack, and life in prison for killing Haruki Ikegami in 1994.
He is held at the high-security Supermax prison ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado. The handcuffs Ramzi Yousef wore when he was captured in Pakistan are displayed at the FBI Museum in Washington, DC. His Federal Prisoner number is: 03911-000.
Read more about this topic: Ramzi Yousef
Famous quotes containing the words conviction, prison and/or life:
“The habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretense, is a wicked and impious practice.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“... how I understand that love of living, of being in this wonderful, astounding world even if one can look at it only through the prison bars of illness and suffering! Plus je vois, the more I am thrilled by the spectacle.”
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night ... shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)