JARRATT, Virginia (Reuters) - Mir Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani who killed two CIA employees in 1993 in a rage over American policy in the Middle East, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, in a case that sparked protests in his homeland and fears of retaliation against U.S. interests. Kasi, 38, was pronounced dead at 9:07 p.m. EST (0207 GMT) at the Greensville Correctional Center in southeast Virginia, said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Kasi looked sad as he entered the death chamber, witnesses said. Kasi's spiritual adviser Dr. Miah Muhammed Saeed, president of the Islamic Center in northern Virginia, accompanied him into the death chamber. The two men appeared to be praying quietly but continuously until Kasi's death. His last words were, "There is no God but Allah," said Traylor.

On January 25, 1993, Kasi, also known in Pakistan as Kansi, parked his pickup truck near CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, during the morning rush hour, picked up an AK-47 and began methodically shooting into cars at a stoplight. Two people were killed and three wounded before he got back into his truck and left the scene unhindered. He flew to Pakistan the next day but was arrested in 1997, convicted and sentenced to die.

The U.S. State Department last week issued a warning to Americans abroad. Four Americans were killed in Pakistan after Kasi's 1997 conviction, and threats were made in Pakistan in recent days to harm Americans if Kasi was executed. But Kasi, who was not believed to have had any links with terrorist organizations, let it be known through his lawyers that he "does not want anybody hurt in his name or as a result of his execution." As a precaution, however, the Virginia State Police said heightened security was provided at the prison and at the state capitol in Richmond.

ANGRY AT U.S. TREATMENT OF MUSLIMS

An FBI agent testified that Kasi confessed he wanted to punish the U.S. government for bombing Iraq, for what he saw as its involvement in the killing of Palestinians and because the CIA was too deeply involved in the internal affairs of Muslim countries. Protesters in Pakistan said Kasi's actions were understandable. "Aimal is not a terrorist," tribal elder Ibrahim Kansi told demonstrators. "His action was a reaction to what was happening to Muslims in Chechnya and Palestine." The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Kasi's latest appeal Thursday. And Virginia Gov. Mark Warner denied a clemency request from Kasi's stepmother and the Pakistani embassy.

He was sentenced to die for the killings of CIA employees Frank Darling, 28, and Lansing Bennett, 66. Three other people, two with the CIA and a telephone company employee, were wounded in Kasi's rampage. He fired 11 bullets into five cars. Darling's father-in-law, Richard Becker, whose daughter was in the car when her husband was murdered, issued a statement on behalf of his family. "The justice system of the United States and the State of Virginia performed and have been heard. On Thursday, we will spend time in prayer for Kasi, that God will have mercy on his soul, for his family, that there be no terrorism reprisal, and for world peace," it said. CIA Director George Tenet said in a statement: "Today, our thoughts are with our two colleagues who were murdered on January 25, 1993, as well as the three others who were wounded that day. They and their loved ones will always be part of our agency family. They will remain in our thoughts and prayers long after today."

PROTESTS IN PAKISTAN

About 150 members of Kasi's tribe in Pakistan marched through the streets of Kasi's hometown of Quetta, not far from the border with Afghanistan, chanting "Aimal is our hero." The demonstrators also burned a U.S. flag. Other activists protested in the central town of Multan and called for the sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment. Iqbal Jafree, a Pakistani lawyer who had attempted to assist in the post-trial appeals, said Kasi's family had picked out a grave for Kasi in his hometown of Quetta. Defence witnesses contended Kasi suffered from brain damage and mental illness, and should have received life in prison instead of the death sentence.

Kasi had been living in Reston, Virginia. He flew to Pakistan the day after the shootings and disappeared for four years. Authorities said he spent most of that time in Afghanistan, hiding in and around Kandahar, which later emerged as a stronghold of the militant Taliban movement linked to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. The FBI arrested Kasi in his hotel room in central Pakistan on June 15, 1997, and brought him to the United States for trial. Kasi's brother, Naseebullah Khan, told Reuters that Kasi had called home on Thursday. "He asked his mother to have courage," Khan said. "He told her to give his wishes to the motherland and to the people of Pakistan and asked them to pray for him."

Kasi requested a last meal of fried rice, bananas, boiled eggs and wheat bread. He was the 4th person executed in Virginia this year and the 87th executed in Virginia since the death penalty was allowed to resume by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Mir Aimal Kasi - On January 25, 1993, Mir Aimal Kasi killed CIA employees Frank Darling and Lansing Bennett outside CIA headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. Kasi fled to and was apprehended by FBI agents in Pakistan. He thereafter confessed to the agents that he was the gunman and was tried for capital murder and sentenced to death.

Kasi appealed ninety-one issues before the Supreme Court of Virginia, all of which were denied. One of Kasi's claims was that the treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom (which was Pakistan's colonial sovereign) should have applied to his extradition from Pakistan to United States. That treaty says that extradition is to be carried out according to the law of the country from which the prosecution seeks to extradite the defendant. Because the Supreme Court of Virginia and United States Supreme Court concluded that Kasi was not extradited, but - their word choice - was instead "kidnapped" by the FBI, they found that there was no violation of the treaty because the treaty did not even apply to his case.

Kasi has been on death row since February 6, 1998.

Virginia Governor Warner Press Release

Statement by Governor Warner Regarding the Scheduled Execution of Mir Aimal Kasi:

RICHMOND — Governor Mark R. Warner today issued the following statement regarding the request for clemency in the case of Mir Aimal Kasi:

“In the morning of January 25, 1993, several vehicles were waiting at a traffic light on Route 123 near the main entrance to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mir Aimal Kasi, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, emerged from another vehicle stopped behind those waiting at the traffic light. Mr. Kasi began to walk among the vehicles, firing into them with his weapon. Within a few seconds, Mr. Kasi had murdered Frank Darling and Lansing Bennett, and wounded Nicholas Starr, Calvin Morgan, and Stephen Williams.

“After a ten-day trial in November 1997, a Fairfax County jury found Mr. Kasi guilty of capital murder of Mr. Darling, murder of Mr. Bennett, malicious woundings of Mr. Starr, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. Williams, and five charges of using a firearm in commission of the foregoing felonies. On February 4, 1998, the court sentenced Mr. Kasi to death.

“Mr. Kasi has admitted to the crimes for which he was convicted and shown absolutely no remorse for his actions. After a thorough review of Mr. Kasi’s petition for clemency and the judicial opinions regarding this case, I have concluded that the death penalty is appropriate in this instance. I will not intervene.”

ProDeathPenalty.Com

In Fairfax, a judge has scheduled a Nov. 7 execution for a Pakistani who opened fire with an assault rifle outside CIA headquarters in 1993, killing 2 people and injuring 3. Mir Aimal Kasi's appeals were exhausted last month when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his death sentence. Only the Supreme Court or Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner can intervene.

Kasi went on a shooting rampage outside the CIA headquarters in 1993, killing two and wounding three CIA employees. Kasi killed Frank A. Darling, 28, an officer in covert operations, and Lansing H. Bennett, 66, an intelligence analyst, on Jan. 25, 1993. Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan said, "If he wasn't a terrorist, I've got to get a new definition." Four Americans were killed in Pakistan in apparent response to Kasi's 1997 trial. "I've tried an awful lot of killers in my life, and I think he's the only one I've run into that is absolutely proud of what he did. You get a lot of killers who don't feel all that bad about what they did, but he's proud of it," said Horan.

At Kasi's trial, an FBI agent testified that Kasi confessed he wanted to punish the U.S. government for bombing Iraq, for what he saw as its involvement in the killing of Palestinians, and because the CIA was too deeply involved in the internal affairs of Muslim countries. After the slayings, he fled the country and spent most of the next 4 and a half years traveling in Afghanistan. He was apprehended in a hotel when visiting Pakistan. The victims were slain with an AK-47 assault rifle as they sat in their cars waiting at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters in McLean on Jan. 25, 1993.

According to the Web site for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Kasi is looking for pen pals. In soliciting pen pals, Kasi said he is interested in a pen-pal friendship, his hobby is reading books, he speaks English and his native language, Pashto, and that he already is corresponding with "a few old friends." He said he has no religious preference, but in 1997 he told the FBI he did not shoot any women because it was against his Muslim religion.

While there was no evidence Kasi had any assistance, the judge ordered the jury sequestered and Kasi was convicted after a 2-week trial that cost about $1.5 million and was held amid unprecedented security at Fairfax Court House. According to the Virginia Supreme Court, in one of his appeals, Kasi contended he should not be sentenced to death because his was a political crime and that his death sentence should be commuted "to avoid possible violent acts of reprisal." On Sept. 11, the day of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Tower and Pentagon, a federal magistrate judge in Norfolk recommended that Kasi's appeal be rejected.

One juror spoke to the press after the penalty phase of the trial. "I was literally shaking," the juror said of the trial's penalty deliberations. "I found it probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do because you are practically wielding the sword." The discussion over whether to convict Kasi was much less emotional, the juror said. And he said the case left him feeling sorry both for Kasi's victims and his family. "They're not terrorists," he said of relatives of Kasi who sat through the 2-week trial in Fairfax County Circuit Court. "They're victims, just like the other side." In the sentencing deliberations, jurors methodically laid out the evidence for and against execution. But the 6 men and 6 women discovered that they couldn't vote right away, the juror said. He then suggested that they talk about their feelings toward the death penalty. "Everybody opened up," he said. "...A lot of people had the same emotions as me. They didn't like taking human life. We didn't want to treat terrorists the same as they treat us." The talk broke the stalemate, yielding a 10-2 vote for the death penalty instead of a sentence of life in prison. Eventually, the majority persuaded the 2 holdouts to focus on the crime, not the defendant, the juror said. "A couple of people said you can't really think of him as he looks now, pathetic," the juror said. "The defense had made him look like a lost soul. You can't approach him with those eyes, or you can't kill him."

Circuit Judge J. Howe Brown Jr., who will formally sentence Kasi on Jan. 23, has sealed the names of the jurors who heard the case. Brown sequestered the jury 2 days after Kasi was convicted, following the ambush slayings of 4 American oil company workers in Karachi. None of the jurors knew of the attack until after the trial ended, the juror told the newspaper. He said they believed they were sequestered to shield them from media coverage of the trial. Jurors had asked the judge on the day Kasi was convicted if any threats had been made, and most were reassured when Brown said no, the juror said.

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Mir Aimal Kasi - Scheduled Execution Date and Time: 11/14/02 9:00 PM EST

Mir Aimal Kasi – a foreign national from Pakistan – is scheduled to be executed by the state of Virginia Nov. 14. On Jan. 25, 1993, Kasi opened fire with an assault rifle outside CIA headquarters, killing two of the agency’s employees and wounding three others. Activists around the world have been campaigning vigorously to stop this execution, but so far, to no avail.

The Kasi case represents an ideal opportunity for the United States to honor its commitments to human rights and peaceful conflict resolution in the international community. Kasi claimed his 1993 shooting spree resulted from frustration over U.S. policies in the Middle East – namely the air attacks on Iraq and the killings of Pakistanians by U.S. components. However, instead of working to improve U.S. foreign policy, Kasi’s retaliation furthered the world’s prevalent cycle of cross-cultural violence; the state of Virginia’s execution will only do the same. A commutation of Kasi’s death sentence would demonstrate this country’s respect for international law, concern for human rights, and objective for a peaceful future in the Middle East.

Aside from the regular political ramifications of executing foreign nationals, this particular death sentence has several procedural flaws. After indicting Kasi shortly after the crime, the United States issued a formal extradition request to Pakistan in April 1993 (citing the 1931 Extradition Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom – Pakistan’s former colonial sovereign – as the authority for the request). Meanwhile, the fugitive allegedly traveled around Afghanistan for several years before returning to his native country. FBI agents abducted him in a hotel room there at four o’clock on the morning of June 15, 1997; after spending two days at a secret location in Pakistan, they returned Kasi to the United States.

Defense lawyers have maintained that the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the foreign national because his abduction from Pakistan was a direct violation of international law – specifically the legal prohibition on arbitrary detention. The courts ruled that nothing in the extradition treaty necessarily prohibits such forcible abductions and detentions, and cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 Alvarez-Machain decision. In that ruling, the high court stated that the forcible abduction of Humberto Alvarez-Machain in Mexico may have violated “general international law principles,” but did not violate the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty, which “says nothing about either country refraining from forcibly abducting people from the other’s territory.” Such language not only sets a dangerous precedent for the future, but also raises doubts about the principles at stake in Kasi’s abduction from Pakistan. As a world leader, the U.S. should make a serious effort to abide by “general international law principles,” instead of interpreting individual treaties as a way of avoiding them.

Kasi’s lawyers also expressed concerns regarding the defendant’s right to contact consular officers under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In its appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia, the defense argued that the “record shows that at no time did the federal agents advise Kasi of his right to consult with a Pakistani diplomat.” Such a mistake, they claimed, warrants cause for the court to reverse Kasi’s death sentence.

Above all else, a human life is at stake, and the reputation of the United States as a nation aiming to protect and defend human rights is hanging in the balance. Please write the state of Virginia and request clemency for Mir Aimal Kasi.

Mir Aimal Kasi v. Commonwealth of Virginia (Virginia Supreme Court)

MIR AIMAL KASI
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY
Record Nos. 980797 November 6, 1998 980798

OPINION BY JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON

J. Howe Brown, Judge

On Monday, January 25, 1993, near 8:00 a.m., a number of automobiles were stopped in two north-bound, left-turn lanes on Route 123 in Fairfax County at the main entrance to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The vehicle operators had stopped for a red traffic light and were waiting to turn into the entrance.

At the same time, a lone gunman emerged from another vehicle, which he had stopped behind the automobiles. The gunman, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, proceeded to move among the automobiles firing the weapon into them. Within a few seconds, Frank Darling and Lansing Bennett were killed and Nicholas Starr, Calvin Morgan, and Stephen Williams were wounded by the gunshots. All the victims were CIA employees and were operators of separate automobiles. The gunman, later identified as defendant Mir Aimal Kasi, also known as Mir Aimal Kansi, fled the scene.

At this time, defendant, a native of Pakistan, was residing in an apartment in Reston with a friend, Zahed Mir. Defendant was employed as a driver for a local courier service and was familiar with the area surrounding the CIA entrance. The day after the shootings, defendant returned to Pakistan. Two days later, Mir reported to the police that defendant was a "missing person."

On February 8, 1993, the police searched Mir's apartment and discovered the weapon used in the shootings as well as other property of defendant. Defendant had purchased the weapon in Fairfax County three days prior to commission of the crimes.

On February 16, 1993, defendant was indicted for the following offenses arising from the events of January 25th: Capital murder of Darling as part of the same act that killed Bennett, Code • 18.2-31(7); murder of Bennett, Code • 18.2-32; malicious woundings of Starr, Morgan, and Williams, Code • 18.2- 51; and five charges of using a firearm in commission of the foregoing felonies, Code • 18.2-53.1.

Nearly four and one-half years later, on June 15, 1997, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) apprehended defendant in a hotel room in Pakistan. Defendant had been travelling in Afghanistan during the entire period, except for brief visits to Pakistan.

On June 17, 1997, defendant was flown from Pakistan to Fairfax County in the custody of FBI agents. During the flight, after signing a written rights waiver form, defendant gave an oral and written confession of the crimes to FBI agent Bradley J. Garrett.

Following 15 pretrial hearings, defendant was tried by a single jury during ten days in November 1997 upon his plea of not guilty to the indictments. The jury found defendant guilty of all charges and, during the second phase of the bifurcated capital proceeding, fixed defendant's punishment at death based upon the vileness predicate of the capital murder sentencing statute, Code • 19.2-264.4.

On February 4, 1998, after three post-trial hearings, during one of which the trial court considered a probation officer's report, the court sentenced defendant to death for the capital murder. Also, the court sentenced defendant to the following punishment in accord with the jury's verdict: For the first- degree murder of Bennett, life imprisonment and a $100,000 fine; for each of the malicious woundings, 20 years' imprisonment and a $100,000 fine; and for the firearms charges, two years in prison for one charge and four years in prison for each of the remaining four charges.

The death sentence is before us for automatic review under former Code • 17-110.1(A) (now • 17.1-313(A)), see Rule 5:22, and we have consolidated this review with defendant's appeal of the capital murder conviction. Former Code • 17-110.1(F) (now • 17.1-313(F)). In addition, by order entered April 23, 1998, we certified from the Court of Appeals of Virginia to this Court the record in the noncapital convictions (Record No. 980798). That record consists only of three notices of appeal from the conviction order. No other effort has been made to perfect the noncapital appeals; therefore, those convictions will be affirmed and we shall not address them further.

In the capital murder appeal, we will consider, as required by statute, not only the trial errors enumerated by the defendant but also whether the sentence of death was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor, and whether the sentence is disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases. Former Code • 17-110.1(C) (now • 17.1- 313(C)).

* * * *

Near 4:00 a.m. on June 15, 1997, Agent Garrett and three other armed FBI agents, dressed in "native clothing," apprehended defendant in a hotel room in Pakistan. Defendant responded to a knock on the room's door and the agents rushed inside. Defendant, who has "a master's degree in English," immediately began screaming in a foreign language and refused to identify himself. After a few minutes, defendant was subdued, handcuffed, and gagged. Garrett identified him through the use of fingerprints. During the scuffle, defendant sustained "minor lacerations" to his arm and back.

When the agents left the hotel with defendant in custody, he was handcuffed and shackled, and a hood had been placed over his head. He was transported in a vehicle for about an hour to board an airplane. During the trip, Garrett told defendant he was an FBI agent.

The ensuing flight lasted "a little over an hour." After the plane landed, defendant was transferred to a vehicle and driven for about 40 minutes to a "holding facility" where he was turned over to Pakistani authorities. The FBI agents removed defendant's handcuffs, shackles, and hood when the group arrived at the holding facility, but the persons in charge of the facility put other handcuffs on him. Defendant was placed in one of the eight cells in the facility, where he remained until the morning of June 17.

During defendant's stay in the facility, the FBI agents never left his presence or allowed him to be interrogated or "harassed." He was allowed to eat, drink, and sleep. On two occasions, the agents removed defendant from his cell to "look at his back and look at his arm" and to take his blood pressure and pulse. The agents did not interrogate defendant in the holding facility and made certain he was treated "fairly and humanely." On June 16, "late in the day," Garrett was advised by an official at the U. S. Embassy in Pakistan that defendant would be "released" the next morning. On June 17 near 7:00 a.m., defendant "was allowed to be released" from the facility in the custody of the FBI agents. He was handcuffed, shackled, and hooded during a 15-minute ride to an airplane. Once on the plane, the hood was removed. Shortly after boarding the aircraft, a physician checked defendant's "well being." During the 12-hour flight to Fairfax County, Garrett first conducted a "background" conversation with defendant, discussing "his life in the United States, where he lived, where he worked." Garrett knew, from his four-and-one-half-year search for defendant, that he was a Pakistani national. Defendant was not a U.S. citizen and he had not returned to the United States after he fled on January 26, 1993.

After the background conversation, Garrett advised defendant of rights according to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Defendant signed an FBI "Advice of Rights" form, after reading it and having it explained to him. He indicated he was waiving his rights and was willing to give a statement. The subsequent interview lasted about one and one-half hours before defendant signed a written statement summarizing the interview. In the written statement, defendant confirmed he purchased the AK-47 rifle and about 150 rounds of ammunition several days before the incident in question. He said he drove his pickup truck to the scene, "got out of my vehicle & started shooting into vehicles stopped at a red light." Continuing, he stated that "I shot approximately 10 rounds shooting 5 people. I aimed for the chest area of the people I shot. I then returned to my truck & drove back to my apartment." He also stated that "several days before the shooting I decided to do the shooting at the CIA or the Israeli Embassy but decided to shoot at the CIA because it was easier because CIA officials are not armed." As part of his oral statement to Garrett, defendant enumerated political reasons "why he wanted to do this shooting." He said he was "upset" because U.S. aircraft had attacked parts of Iraq, he was "upset with the CIA because of their involvement in Muslim countries," and he was concerned with "killing of Pakistanians by U.S. components." When Garrett asked defendant "why he stopped shooting," he replied "there wasn't anybody else left to shoot." When asked about the gender of those shot, defendant replied "that he only shot males because it would be against his religion to shoot females."

* * * The record clearly establishes that Zahed Mir, defendant's roommate and the lessee of the apartment, consented to the search of a suitcase found in a hall closet within the apartment. Two handguns and magazines of AK-47 ammunition were found in the suitcase and eventually were received in evidence. The investigating police officer testified that he had received Mir's "verbal consent several times" to open the suitcase. The trial court correctly concluded, under the evidence, that Mir had the authority to give permission to the officer "to look in" the suitcase, rendering the search valid.

* * *

The defendant says that because his crimes were "political," he somehow is entitled to First Amendment protection, and that his death sentence should be commuted to avoid possible violent acts of reprisal. As the Attorney General observes, defendant received the death sentence, not because he had a political motive, but because he murdered two innocent men, and maimed three others, in an extremely brutal and premeditated manner. As the defendant moved among the stopped automobiles, he shot through the rear window of the Darling vehicle, severely wounding Darling in the torso. In a few seconds, defendant appeared at the front of the Darling vehicle and fired at him again, destroying a part of his head. Darling also suffered at least one gunshot wound to his lower leg, resulting in a compound fracture. There is nothing "arbitrary" about a death sentence imposed under the circumstances of this case and, thus, there is no basis for commutation.

In conducting our proportionality review, we must determine "whether other sentencing bodies in this jurisdiction generally impose the supreme penalty for comparable or similar crimes, considering both the crime and the defendant." Jenkins, 244 Va. at 461, 423 S.E.2d at 371. See former Code • 17-110.1(C)(2) (now • 17.1-313(C)(2)). We have examined our records of all capital murder cases, see former Code • 17-110.1(E) (now • 17.1-313(E)), including those cases where a life sentence was imposed. We have particularly studied those cases in which the death penalty was based on the vileness factor. See Cardwell v. Commonwealth, 248 Va. 501, 517, 450 S.E.2d 146, 156 (1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1097 (1995).

Based upon this review, we conclude that defendant's death sentence is not excessive or disproportionate to penalties generally imposed by sentencing bodies in the Commonwealth for similar conduct. The death sentence generally is imposed for a capital murder when, as here, the defendant is also convicted of killing another person. Goins v. Commonwealth, 251 Va. 442, 469, 470 S.E.2d 114, 132, cert. denied, 519 U.S. 887 (1996). Consequently, we hold the trial court committed no reversible error, and we have independently determined from a review of the entire record that the sentence of death was properly assessed. Thus, we will affirm the trial court's judgment.

CNN.Com

"Family Says Gunman at CIA Loved America." (November 11, 1997)

FAIRFAX, Virginia (CNN) -- A Pakistani man convicted of killing two men in a shooting spree outside CIA headquarters once professed a love for this country, his uncle testified Tuesday. "He always say that 'I like America, I love America and I want to go there,'" Amanullah Kasi said at a sentencing hearing for his nephew, Mir Aimal Kasi.

Kasi was convicted Monday of one count of capital murder in the death of Frank Darling, 28, and one count of first-degree murder in the death of Lansing Bennett, 66. The two men were shot in their cars while waiting in the morning traffic outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on January 25, 1993. The attack left three other people wounded. Prosecutors -- who claim Kasi was out to avenge the bombing of Iraq and what he though was American meddling in Muslim countries -- are asking for the death penalty.

Kasi's uncle testified that his nephew was not politically active and had no hatred for the United States. And one of Kasi's older brothers, Mir Weis Kasi, said Kasi was an apolitical loner who talked to himself as a teen-ager. Three teachers from his hometown elementary school in Quetta, Pakistan, also testified, describing him as a solemn boy and a poor math student. One teacher, Rahel Ernest Nathaniel, wept as she looked at a class photo of Kasi as a boy. "That's Aimal," she said, using the name Kasi's friends and family use for him. "He was quiet, very shy. Not a talkative child."

Jurors heard Tuesday from the widow of one of the two victims. Judy Becker Darling, 38, said that after her husband's murder, she was unable to live in the house she shared with him, and that she couldn't return to her job at the CIA, where she had worked 13 years. Mrs. Darling was in the car with her husband when he was gunned down, and in tears Tuesday she told the jury she couldn't eat, sleep or function normally for almost two years after he was killed. "I just kept telling (my parents) I could smell blood and death," she said. "I just didn't want to be here anymore. I wanted to be with him."

Jurors already recommended to the judge that Kasi receive maximum sentences: life in prison for the murder of Bennett, 20 years each for three counts of malicious wounding and 18 years for five firearms charges. They also recommended that he be fined $400,000. The jury didn't begin considering the capital murder count in Darling's death until Tuesday because death penalty counts require a separate sentencing hearing.

The defense plans to call medical and psychological experts to testify about Kasi's mental condition as his sentencing hearing continues. The prosecution says it will counter with its own medical experts. Both sides agree the case is likely to go to the jury before the end of this week.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Kasi Dies for CIA Killings," by Frank Green and Rex Springston. (November 15, 2002) JARRATT - Praying quietly until the end, Mir Aimal Kasi was executed by injection last night for the 1993 slayings of two CIA employees. In his last statement, Kasi said, "There is no God but Allah," according to Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Then, Kasi chanted quietly, Traylor said. He was pronounced dead at 9:07 p.m.

Media witnesses said Kasi prayed with a Muslim spiritual adviser for his last hour. As he lay strapped on the gurney, Kasi gestured with his right hand, witnesses said. "My personal impression was a peace sign" directed at the witnesses, said Guy Taylor, of The Washington Times. "He appeared almost saddened." Another media witness, reporter Chris Gordon of the NBC affiliate in Washington, said he saw something "like a twitch" but wasn't sure it was peace sign. Describing the death, Gordon said, "He appeared to go to sleep."

Though not linked to any extremist organizations, Kasi, 38, a Pakistani national, gave the United States a taste of terrorism years before the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He was sentenced to death for the murders of Frank Darling, 28, and Lansing Bennett, 66. They were killed with an AK-47 assault rifle as they sat in their cars at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters in McLean on Jan. 25, 1993. Three other people, two with the CIA and a telephone company employee, were wounded. Kasi fired a total of 11 bullets into five cars.

An FBI agent testified that Kasi confessed he wanted to punish the U.S. government for bombing Iraq, for what he saw as its involvement in the killing of Palestinians and because the CIA was too deeply involved in the internal affairs of Muslim countries.

The U.S. State Department issued an advisory for Americans abroad last week because of the pending execution. Threats had been made in recent days in Pakistan to harm Americans should Kasi be executed. Four Americans were killed in Pakistan during his 1997 trial. In Kasi's hometown of Quetta, Pakistan, paramilitary troops stood guard as supporters rallied yesterday in protest of the execution, burning an American flag and calling for the United States to stop interfering in their country. However, a reporter from Pakistan who was covering the execution last night said Kasi is not widely perceived as a hero there. "He's not a hero. He's committed a crime," said Azim M. Miam, United Nations bureau chief for the Jang Group of Newspapers.

Miam said there has been a great deal of interest in the case in Pakistan because there has been so much coverage in the American media. "In these days of globalization, CNN, ABC - they are beaming these things over there about Aimal Kasi." More law enforcement vehicles were stationed near the Greensville Correctional Center entrance than usual for an execution, and corrections officers armed with shotguns and rifles stood watch. Kasi's execution also attracted far more media outlets than usual, as measured by the number of vehicles with satellite dishes in the prison's parking lot. In Richmond, state and Capitol Police cruisers, with blue lights flashing, were positioned last night on East Franklin and North Eight and Ninth streets around the building that houses the Virginia Supreme Court and Virginia Court of Appeals. No threats had been received, said Lt. Robert Northern of the Virginia State Police. The extra security was merely precautionary "because of the unique nature of the person being executed."

Outside the prison, about 75 people held a candlelight vigil to protest the execution. They prayed for Kasi and his victims as they gathered in a circle under a nearly full moon on the cool night in the low 50s. "We're here because we don't believe you can end violence with violence," said Judith Shanholtz, a Henrico County resident. The protesters carried signs bearing messages such as "Life is Sacred - Do Not Kill" and "Don't Kill For Me." Ann McBride, 57, a Fairfax County preschool teacher, said she has corresponded with Kasi for the last three years. "He's a great person. That's why I'm very sad," she said. "It's incredibly hard for me to see how people can choose to kill." Shanholtz and McBride acknowledged Kasi was guilty, but they said that didn't justify another killing.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Kasi's last appeal and request for a stay of execution yesterday afternoon. Then Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner turned down a clemency request from Kasi's stepmother and the Pakistani Embassy. Warner, in rejecting Kasi's clemency petition, said the death penalty is appropriate in this case. "Mr. Kasi has admitted to the crimes for which he was convicted and shown absolutely no remorse for his actions," the governor said.

Judith Becker-Darling testified at Kasi's trial that she and her husband, Frank Darling, were driving to work, "And all of a sudden, I heard glass smash behind me. My husband looked in the rear view mirror and said right away, 'My God, I've been shot. Get down!'" Becker-Darling said she ducked beneath the dashboard as her husband struggled to maneuver their Volkswagen Jetta out of harm's way. She continued to hear what sounded liked balloons popping. "I picked my head up and I was looking down the barrel of a gun . . . my husband said again, 'Get down.'" She obeyed and heard more shots. "When I picked my head up, Frank was shot in the head." Kasi's real name is Aimal Khan Kasi, but he was charged and convicted as Mir Aimal Kasi. He was the fourth person executed in Virginia this year and the 87th since the death penalty was allowed to resume by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

Washington Times (November 12, 2002)

QUETTA, Pakistan — Two Middle East politicians have asked the United States to spare the life of convicted killer Aimal Kasi, saying such an act would help win the war on terrorism, a Pakistani newspaper reported Monday.

Mr. Kasi, 38, born in the dusty border town of Quetta, is scheduled to be executed Thursday by lethal injection in Virginia for gunning down two CIA employees as they sat in their cars outside agency headquarters. Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner said yesterday he had received a clemency petition from Mr. Kasi, but will not comment on the case until court appeals are exhausted.

In Kasi's hometown, newspapers have published appeals for clemency and have asked the city's more than 1 million residents to "pray for Aimal Kasi that God save his life from execution." His family, friends and 1,000 Muslim clerics have also issued appeals. Two prominent local politicians, according to the newspaper story, said putting Kasi to death won't help the United States' relationship with Pakistan, a key ally in the fight against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. "By forgiving one person the U.S. can win the hearts of millions of people in its war against terrorism," the Baluchistan Times quoted Sarwar Khan Kakar and Noor Jehan Panezai as saying in a joint statement. Mr. Kakar is secretary-general of the state branch of the party that supports Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Quaid-e-Azam faction of the Pakistan Muslim League. The International Herald Tribune

"A Muslim Gets Even With the CIA," by Patricia Davis and Maria Glod. (Washington Post 11-15-02) FBI Special Agent Brad Garrett was not sure the man on the bed in the seedy hotel room in Pakistan really was Mir Aimal Kasi. He had a beard and was heavier than the gunman who had opened fire just outside CIA headquarters, killing two agency employees and wounding three other people.

"Turn him over," Garrett told the other agents, their guns drawn, as he straddled the man in the $3-a-night room at the Shalimar Hotel in Dera Ghazi Kahn. Garrett then took the man's left thumb and pressed it onto an ink pad. .Garrett had brought a photograph of Kasi's fingerprints in a bag. In the middle of the night, in that desolate, dusty town bordering Afghanistan, in 1997, the agent pulled out a magnifying glass and studied the prints. The four-and-a half-year international manhunt was finally over. "It's a match," Garrett said.

Kasi, 38, was scheduled to be executed Thursday night at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia. His death would end an odyssey that began Jan. 25, 1993, during morning rush hour in Langley, Virginia, when Kasi stepped out of his Izusu pickup truck, shouldered an AK-47 and began firing methodically at motorists waiting to turn in to CIA headquarters. .In the five years since Kasi was convicted in Fairfax County Circuit Court and sentenced to death, he exhausted his appeals. Only the Supreme Court or Governor Mark Warner of Virginia was left Thursday to intervene.

The State Department has warned that Kasi's execution could result in retaliation against Americans around the world. Protesters have taken to the streets in Pakistan, including hundreds of angry university students in Multan. .Many consider the threat very real. Kasi was hailed as a hero among some in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the shooting. A day after his conviction in 1997, four American oil executives were killed in Pakistan, and U.S. officials speculated at the time that the slayings were in retaliation for the trial.

Kasi has appealed to his supporters to refrain from any violent response, his attorney, Charles Burke, said. "He doesn't want any uproar or retaliation. He doesn't want anyone to do anything," Burke said. .But Kasi also says he has no regrets. "He stands by what he did and now knows he's got to pay the ultimate price," Garrett said. .The FBI and the CIA never found evidence that Kasi was linked to a terrorist organization. But his violent acts that day foreshadowed future terrorist attacks against the United States.

Like a suicide bomber, Kasi was willing to sacrifice his life to protest U.S. foreign policy, which he believed was hurting Muslims. ."So much of America was surprised by 9/11, but, in fact, the degree of animosity and hatred that has been mobilized in Third World countries had been growing," said Jerrold Post, a George Washington University professor who has studied the psychology of terrorism. "We're not just talking about Al Qaeda; we're talking about the climate of radical Islam." .Harvey Kushner, a terrorism consultant at Long Island University, called Kasi the "perfect prototype of what we face in Al Qaeda. He's the guy who steps up to the plate." .During the plane ride to the United States, Kasi told Garrett he wanted to "teach a lesson" to the U.S. government. "He would have killed anyone at the gates of the CIA that day," said Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Horan Jr., who prosecuted Kasi. "He was getting even with the CIA for the way they treated the Muslim people of the world. He was, and I believe he is, proud of what he did, and I believe he'd do it again tomorrow morning if he had the chance." .Kasi, who carried 150 rounds of ammunition that day, was aiming only at men - he believed killing women, who did not have any power in his country, would be wrong. He stopped firing only because there was no one left to shoot. .Kasi was able to climb back into his truck and continue down the road. He returned to his apartment, stuck the assault weapon in a green plastic bag, placed the bag under the sofa and grabbed something to eat at a McDonald's restaurant. .It was clear to Kasi from CNN news reports that the police had the wrong description of his vehicle and that no one had seen his license plate number. Nevertheless, he decided to spend the night at a Days Inn before catching a flight to Pakistan the next day. .A task force, led by Garrett, began combing through AK-47 purchases. An employee at one gun store recalled exchanging a customer's gun for an AK-47. The owner's name on the sales slip: Mir Aimal Kasi.

Kasi's roommate, who had reported him missing after the shootings, told the police that Kasi would get incensed watching CNN when he heard how Muslims were being treated. Kasi had said he was going to do "something big" at the White House, the Israeli Embassy or the CIA, but his roommate did not think much of it. The roommate let the police search the apartment, where they found the AK-47 under the couch. The ballistics matched, and the search began. .During the next four years, Garrett and other agents made frequent trips to Pakistan. Leads would evolve, then evaporate, in places as far away as Thailand. ."We literally followed up hundreds of leads that took us all over the globe," he said.

Finally, in the late spring of 1997, informants said agents could find Kasi in a hotel, the Shalimar, in Dera Ghazi Kahn. They produced recent photos and fingerprints. .At 4 a.m. June 15, wearing traditional Pakistani clothes over their jeans and weapons, they approached the hotel, which they were told would be unlocked. It wasn't. So they had no choice: They knocked. ."It was surreal," Garrett said. "It's dark. It's dusty. I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie. We're actually starting to sweat it." .On the trip home, Kasi did not resist when Garrett asked him about the shootings. He said he had done it because he was upset at how Muslims were treated by the CIA in their own countries, particularly Iraq. He hoped his actions would make a statement. ."He was very upfront about what he did. He didn't try to blame it on anyone. He didn't try to hide it," Horan said.

Americans urged to be vigilant .The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and consulates in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi will close early Friday following the scheduled execution in Virginia of Kasi, Agence France-Presse reported from Washington. The embassy said in a notice that Americans should continue to be wary of the threat of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, "especially in light of the scheduled November 14 execution in the State of Virginia of Mir Aimal Kasi."

Washington Post

"CIA Shooter Kasi, Harbinger of Terror, Set to Die Tonight; U.S. Supreme Court, Virginina Governor Warner Deny Late Appeals," by Patricia Davis and Maria Glod. (November, 2002)

FBI special agent Brad Garrett wasn't sure the man on the bed in the seedy hotel room in Pakistan really was Mir Aimal Kasi. He had a beard and was heavier than the gunman who had opened fire outside CIA headquarters, killing two agency employees and injuring three other people. "Turn him over," Garrett told the other agents, their guns drawn, as he straddled the man in the $3-a-night room at the Shalimar Hotel in Dera Ghazi Kahn. Garrett then took the man's left thumb and pressed it onto an ink pad. Garrett had brought a photograph of Kasi's fingerprints in a bag. In the middle of the night, in a desolate, dusty town bordering Afghanistan, in 1997, the agent pulled out a magnifying glass and studied the prints. The 4-1/2-year international manhunt was finally over. "It's a match!" Garrett said. The FBI and the CIA never found evidence that Kasi was linked to an organized terrorist organization. But his shocking, violent acts that day foreshadowed future terrorist acts against the United States here and abroad. Like a suicide bomber, Kasi was willing to sacrifice his life to protest U.S. foreign policy, which he believed was hurting Muslims worldwide. "So much of America was surprised by 9/11, but, in fact, the degree of animosity and hatred that has been mobilized in Third World countries had been growing," said Jerrold Post, a George Washington University professor who has studied the psychology of terrorism. "We're not just talking about al Qaeda; we're talking about the climate of radical Islam."

Harvey Kushner, a terrorism consultant at Long Island University, called Kasi the "perfect prototype of what we face in al Qaeda. He's the guy who steps up to the plate." During the plane ride to the United States, Kasi told Garrett he wanted to "teach a lesson" to the U.S. government. "He would have killed anyone at the gates of the CIA that day," said Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., who prosecuted Kasi. "He was getting even with the CIA for the way they treated the Muslim people of the world. He was, and I believe he is, proud of what he did, and I believe he'd do it again tomorrow morning if he had the chance."

Kasi has said as much in various media interviews over the past several days. He had agreed to speak to The Washington Post but backed out moments before the scheduled interview. The U.S. State Department has warned that Kasi's execution could result in retaliation against Americans around the world. Protesters have taken to the streets in Pakistan, including hundreds of angry university students in Multan. Many consider the threat very real. Kasi was hailed as a hero among some in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the shooting. A day after his conviction in 1997, four American oil executives were killed in Pakistan, and U.S. officials speculated at the time that the slayings were in retaliation for the trial.

Kasi planned to spend much of what could be his last day praying, said Garrett, who has met regularly with Kasi on death row and was asked by the Pakistani native to attend his execution. Kasi has appealed to his supporters to refrain from any violent response, said his attorney, Charles R. Burke. "He doesn't want any uproar or retaliation. He doesn't want anyone to do anything," Burke said. But Kasi also says he has no regrets. "He stands by what he did and now knows he's got to pay the ultimate price," Garrett said.

It was bitterly cold Jan. 25, 1993, at the height of the morning rush, when Kasi stepped out of his truck in the left-turn lanes outside the CIA and began firing, the first shot piercing the rear window of a Volkswagen Golf. Judy Becker-Darling, sitting in the front passenger seat next to her husband, Frank Darling, heard the crash and thought another car had struck theirs. "Oh my God, somebody has a gun," Darling, 28, told his wife of only three months. "I've been shot."

As Darling urged his wife to hide under the dashboard, Kasi turned to another car trapped at the light and fatally shot Lansing Bennett, 66, a physician and CIA intelligence analyst. Kasi then walked between the double line of cars, shooting and wounding Calvin Morgan, 61, an engineer; Nicholas Starr, 60, a CIA analyst; and Stephen E. Williams, 48, an AT&T employee. Then Kasi returned to the Darlings' car and fired three more times, striking Frank Darling, a CIA employee who worked in covert operations, in the leg, groin and head. Out of the corner of her eye, Becker-Darling saw something rush past. She saw the gun, not Kasi. "I hope he runs out of bullets," she prayed.

Kasi, who carried 150 rounds of ammunition that day, was aiming only at men-he believed killing women, who did not have any power in his country, would be wrong. He stopped firing only because there was no one left to shoot. Kasi was surprised that he was able to climb back into his truck and continue down the road without having a shootout with police. When he got to Kirby Road, he turned right and headed for a park in McLean.

As law enforcement officials widened their search, Kasi was just five minutes away in the park, where he stayed for 90 minutes. No one seemed to be looking for him, so he returned to his Herndon apartment, stuck the assault weapon in a green plastic bag, placed the bag under the sofa and grabbed something to eat at McDonald's. It was clear to Kasi from CNN news reports that police had the wrong description of his vehicle and that no one had seen his license plate number. Nevertheless, he decided to spend the night at a Days Inn before catching a flight to Pakistan the next day.

A task force of Fairfax police and federal law enforcement officers, called "Langmur" for the Langley murders, tried to learn the identity of the gunman. Garrett, who arrived about 30 minutes after the shootings, was assigned to the case. On the theory that the gun was recently bought, the task force began combing through AK-47 purchases in Virginia and Maryland in the past year, Garrett said. There had been more than 1,600. An employee at a Chantilly gun store recalled exchanging a customer's gun for an AK-47. The owner's name on the sales slip: Mir Aimal Kasi.

Kasi's roommate, who had reported him missing after the shootings, told police that Kasi would get incensed watching CNN when he heard how Muslims were being treated. Kasi had said he was going to do "something big" at the White House, the Israeli Embassy or the CIA, but his roommate didn't think much of it. The roommate let police search the apartment, where they found the AK-47 under the couch. Soon after, Garrett got a double 911 page: The ballistics matched, and the search began. A month after the CIA shootings came the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Authorities wanted to know whether Kasi was acting alone or was part of some bigger plan. "The investigators spent a lot of time trying to find out: Did he have an accomplice? Was he part of some movement? Was he part of some collection that had other violence in mind?" Horan recalled.

During the next four years, Garrett and other agents made frequent trips to Pakistan. Developing and corroborating sources was difficult. Leads would evolve, then evaporate, in places as far away as Thailand. "We literally followed up hundreds of leads that took us all over the globe," Garrett said. Finally, in the late spring of 1997, informants said agents could find Kasi in a hotel, the Shalimar, in Dera Ghazi Kahn. They produced recent photos and fingerprints. Garrett and the other FBI agents began to get excited.

The team of four, including two agents from the hostage rescue team, practiced room entries, parking one agent in the hallway, Garrett said. The first agent in the room would not be armed and would jump Kasi when he answered the door. The other two would clear the room of people or weapons. They were pumped-and concerned. "What if we end up killing him? Or killing the wrong person? Or one of us gets killed?" At 4 a.m. June 15, 1997, wearing traditional Pakistani clothes over their jeans and weapons, they approached the hotel, which they were told would be unlocked. It wasn't. So they had no choice: They knocked. "It was surreal," Garrett said. "It's dark. It's dusty. I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie. We're actually starting to sweat it."

On the trip home, Kasi did not resist when Garrett asked him about the shootings. He said he had done it because he was upset at how Muslims were treated by the CIA in their own countries, particularly Iraq. He hoped his actions would make a statement. "He was very upfront about what he did. He didn't try to blame it on anyone. He didn't try to hide it," Horan said. Back home, Kasi became a hero, Garrett said.

To Garrett, who was involved in the arrest of Ramzi Yusef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Kasi's story sounded similar to Yusef's: He thought that if he caused enough havoc, it would change U.S. policies. "It was almost illogic logic," Garrett said. "It wasn't personal. It wasn't like hating individuals. It was more institutional."

Garrett made the first of many visits to Kasi on death row about three months after his November 1997 conviction. "Why haven't you executed me yet?" Kasi asked. The agent explained that it takes a few years in the United States. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Kasi told Garrett that he did not approve of the attack on the World Trade Center because innocent civilians were killed. He understood, however, the attack on the Pentagon, the symbol of government might.

Kushner, the terrorism expert, said that even though Kasi acted alone, he was the opening salvo for Muslim fundamentalists. "He was one of the dots that should have been connected before 9/11," Kushner said. "He was a serious player even though they were never able to link him to any specific group." Thomas J. Badey, a political scientist at Randolph Macon College, said the students' protests in Pakistan over Kasi's pending execution is a sign that the fervor isn't nearly over. "It appears that Kasi's fate is becoming a rallying cry in parts of Pakistan," Badey said. "He's the one foreign Islamic terrorist prosecuted in the United States who has been sentenced to death. The question is how effective is that as a tool in fighting terror, because he becomes a martyr for the cause."

Kasi's victims, like Kasi, hope there is no retaliation. "We will spend time in prayer for Kasi, that God will have mercy on his soul, for his family, that there be no terrorism reprisal, and for world peace," Becker-Darling's family said in a statement.