1993 CIA shootings
Encyclopedia
Langley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States.The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School...
where two CIA employees were killed and three others wounded. The perpetrator, Aimal Qazi
Aimal Qazi
Aimal Qazi , also known as Mir Aimal Kasi, was a Pakistani assailant involved in the 1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In the incident, Kasi killed two CIA employees and wounded another three before escaping to Pakistan....
(Kasi), shot CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight. He reportedly got angry watching news reports of attacks on Muslims and stated his motive was that he was "angry with the policy of the U.S. government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people".
Kasi fled the country and was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the...
list, sparking a four year international manhunt
Manhunt (law enforcement)
In law enforcement, a manhunt is a search for a dangerous fugitive involving the use of all available police units and technology and sometimes help from the public....
. He was captured by FBI agents in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in 1997 and rendered
Rendition (law)
In law, rendition is a "surrender" or "handing over" of persons or property, particularly from one jurisdiction to another. For criminal suspects, extradition is the most common type of rendition. Rendition can also be seen as the act of handing over, after the request for extradition has taken...
back to the United States to stand trial. He admitted that he shot the victims of the attack, and was subsequently found guilty of capital
Capital punishment in the United States
Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
and first-degree murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, and was executed by lethal injection
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
in 2002.
Background
Aimal Qazi
Aimal Qazi , also known as Mir Aimal Kasi, was a Pakistani assailant involved in the 1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In the incident, Kasi killed two CIA employees and wounded another three before escaping to Pakistan....
(or Mir Aimal Kasi) was born in Quetta
Quetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, either on 10 February 1964 or 1 January 1967. He entered the United States in 1991, taking a substantial sum of cash he had inherited on the death of his father in 1989. He travelled on forged papers he had purchased in Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Pakistan, altering his last name to "Kansi", and later bought a fake green card
United States Permanent Resident Card
United States lawful permanent residency refers to a person's immigration status: the person is authorized to live and work in the United States of America on a permanent basis....
in Miami. He stayed with a Kashmiri
Kashmiri people
The Kashmiri people are a Dardic linguistic group living in Kashmir Valley in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and parts of the Pakistani territory of Azad Kashmir who speak the Kashmiri language...
friend, Zahed Mir, in his Reston, Virginia
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...
apartment, and invested in a courier firm for which he also worked as a driver. This work would be decisive in his choice of target: "I used to pass this area almost every day and knew these two left-turning lanes [were] mostly people who work for CIA."
According to Kasi, his first thoughts of an attack came after the purchase of an AK-47 from a Chantilly
Chantilly, Virginia
Chantilly is an unincorporated community located in western Fairfax County and southeastern Loudoun County of Northern Virginia. Recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census designated place , the community population was 23,039 as of the 2010 census -- down from 41,041 in 2000, due to the...
gun store. The plan soon became "more important than any other thing to [him]."
Shootings
At around 8 a.m on January 25, 1993, Kansi stopped a borrowed brown DatsunDatsun
Datsun was an automobile marque. The name was created in 1931 by the DAT Motorcar Co. for a new car model, spelling it as "Datson" to indicate its smaller size when compared to the existing, larger DAT car. Later, in 1933 after Nissan Motor Co., Ltd...
station wagon
Station wagon
A station wagon is a body style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door , instead of a trunk lid...
behind a number of vehicles waiting at a red traffic light on the eastbound side of Route 123
Virginia State Route 123
Virginia State Route 123 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. The state highway runs from U.S. Route 1 in Woodbridge north to the Chain Bridge across the Potomac River into Washington from Arlington...
, Fairfax County
Fairfax County, Virginia
Fairfax County is a county in Virginia, in the United States. Per the 2010 Census, the population of the county is 1,081,726, making it the most populous jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with 13.5% of Virginia's population...
. The vehicles were waiting to make a left turn into the main entrance of CIA headquarters. Kansi emerged from his vehicle with an AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
type semi-automatic rifle and proceeded to move among the lines of vehicles, firing a total of 10 rounds into them, killing Lansing H. Bennett, 66, and Frank Darling, 28. Three others were left with gunshot wounds. Darling was shot first and later received additional gunshot wounds to the head after Kansi shot the other victims.
During his later confession, Kansi said that he'd only stopped firing because "there wasn't anybody else left to shoot", and that he only shot male passengers because "it would be against [his] religion to shoot females".
He was also surprised at the lack of an armed response: "I thought I will be arrested, or maybe killed in a shootout with CIA guards or police."
Kansi climbed back into his vehicle and drove to a nearby park. After 90 minutes of waiting, it became clear that he was not being actively sought and so he drove back to his Reston apartment. He hid the rifle in a green plastic bag under a sofa, went to a McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
for something to eat, and booked himself into a Days Inn
Days Inn
Days Inn is a motel chain headquartered in the United States. Founded in 1970, it is now a part of the Wyndham Hotel Group, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, which was formerly a part of Cendant...
for the night. The CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
news reports he watched made it clear that police had misidentified his vehicle and did not have his license plate number. The next morning, he took a flight to Quetta, Pakistan.
According to Kansi, he killed American CIA people because, "I was real angry with the policy of the U.S. government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people," Kansi said in a prison interview with CNN affiliate WTTG.
Investigation
An investigative task force (named "Langmur" for "Langley murders") was drawn together from both the FBI and local Fairfax CountyFairfax County, Virginia
Fairfax County is a county in Virginia, in the United States. Per the 2010 Census, the population of the county is 1,081,726, making it the most populous jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with 13.5% of Virginia's population...
police. They began sifting through recent AK-47 purchases in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
and Virginia—there had been at least 1,600 over the previous year alone. Mir Aimal Kansi's name was on the sales slip from a gun store in Chantilly
Chantilly, Virginia
Chantilly is an unincorporated community located in western Fairfax County and southeastern Loudoun County of Northern Virginia. Recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census designated place , the community population was 23,039 as of the 2010 census -- down from 41,041 in 2000, due to the...
, where he had exchanged another gun for the AK-47 just three days before the shootings.
This information provided the first solid lead in the investigation when Kansi's roommate, Zahed Mir, reported him missing two days after the shootings. He also told police how Kansi would get angry watching CNN reports of attacks on Muslims — in particular, Kansi would later cite the US attacks on Iraq, Israeli killings of Palestinians, and CIA involvement in Muslim countries. Although Mir didn't think much of it at the time, Kansi had said he wanted to do "something big", with possible targets of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, the Israeli Embassy
Israeli diplomatic missions
This is a list of diplomatic missions of Israel, excluding honorary consulates. There are 70 resident embassies, 18 consulates and five 'special' missions in the 159 states that recognise Israel....
and the CIA.
A police search of Kansi's apartment turned up the hidden AK-47 under the couch. Ballistics tests confirmed it was the weapon used in the shootings, and Kansi became the chief suspect of the investigation.
Kansi was listed as one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the...
. The search was focused on Pakistan, and agents spent the next four years following hundreds of leads, taking them as far afield as Thailand, but to no avail. Kansi would later reveal he had spent this time being sheltered by fellow Pashtun tribesmen, in the border regions of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, making only brief visits to Pakistan.
Capture and rendition
In May 1997, an informant walked into the U.S. consulate in Karachi and claimed he could help lead them to Kasi. As proof, he showed a copy of a driver license application made by Kasi under a false name but bearing his photograph. Apparently, the people who had been sheltering Kasi were now prepared to accept the multi-million dollar reward offer for his capture. Other sources claim they were pressured by the Pakistani government. Kasi stated "I want to make it clear (that) the people who tricked me ... were Pushtuns, they were owners of land in the Leghari and Khosa clan areas in Dera Ghazi Khan, but I will never name them."Kasi was in the Afghan border regions, so the informant was told to lure Kasi into Pakistan where he could be more easily apprehended. Kasi was tempted with a lucrative business offer—smuggling Russian electronic goods into Pakistan—which brought him to Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan is a city located in Dera Ghazi Khan District, Punjab, Pakistan. Dera Ghazi Khan is one of the most populous cities in Southern Punjab, and it is the largest district in Punjab in terms of area, being approximately in extent....
, in the Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
province of Pakistan, where he checked into a room at Shalimar Hotel.
At 4 a.m. on the morning of June 15, 1997, an armed team of FBI agents, working with the Pakistani ISI
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
, raided Kansi's hotel room. His fingerprint
Fingerprint
A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges...
s were taken on the scene, confirming his identity.
There is some dispute over where Kasi was taken next—US authorities claim it was a holding facility run by Pakistani authorities, while Pakistani sources claim it was the U.S. embassy in Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
— before being flown to the US on June 17 in a C-141
C-141 Starlifter
The Lockheed C-141 Starlifter was a military strategic airlifter in service with the Air Mobility Command of the United States Air Force...
transport.
During the flight, Kasi made a full oral and written confession to the FBI.
Kansi's extrajudicial rendition
Rendition
Rendition may refer to:*Rendition , a legal term meaning "handing over"*Extraordinary rendition by the United States, the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another*"Rendition" , an episode of Torchwood...
was controversial in Pakistan—no formal request for his extradition was made, and no extradition proceedings were initiated. US authorities would later assert the rendition was legal under an extradition treaty signed with the UK, before Partition
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
when India was under colonial rule. Kansi argued against his rendition in court but his assertions were found to have no basis in law. The Court wrote:
Trial
On February 16, 1993, Kansi, then a fugitiveFugitive
A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals...
, had been charged in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
. The charges involved capital murder of Darling, murder of Bennett, and three counts of malicious wounding for the other victims, along with related firearms charges.
During the trial the defense introduced testimony from Dr. Richard Restak
Richard Restak
Richard Restak is an American neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, author and professor.- Education :Restak is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Georgetown University School of Medicine. He performed his postgraduate training in New York City at St. Vincent's Hospital where he completed his...
a neurologist
Neurologist
A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...
and also a neuropsychiatrist, that Kansi was missing tissue from his frontal lobes, a congenital defect that made it hard for him to judge the consequence of his actions. This testimony was re-iterated by another psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
for the defense based upon independent examination.
Kansi was tried by a Virginia state court jury over a period of ten days in November 1997, on a plea of not guilty to all charges. The jury found him guilty, and fixed punishment for the capital murder charge at death. On February 4, 1998, Kansi was sentenced to death for the capital murder of Darling, who was shot at the beginning of the attack and again after the other victims had been shot. Among his other punishments were a life sentence
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
for the first-degree murder of Bennett, multiple 20-year sentences for the malicious woundings, and fines totalling $600,000.
Possible vendetta
Days before Kansi's conviction in November 1997, four US oil executives and their Pakistani taxi driver were shot dead in Karachi, in what has been described as a deliberate response to Kansi's guilty verdict.Execution
Kansi was executed by lethal injectionLethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
on November 14, 2002, at Greensville Correctional Center
Greensville Correctional Center
Greensville Correctional Center is a prison facility located in unincorporated Greensville County, Virginia, near Jarratt. It is operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections. Greensville houses the execution chamber used to carry out capital punishment by the Commonwealth of...
in Jarratt, Virginia
Jarratt, Virginia
Jarratt is a town in Greensville and Sussex counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 589 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.3 square miles , all land....
. Kansi's body was repatriated to Pakistan, his funeral was attended by the entire civil hierarchy of Baluchistan, the local Pakistan Army Corps Commander and the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Ashraf Jahangir Qazi
Ashraf Qazi
Ashraf Jehangir Qazi is a politician in Pakistan and a career diplomat in the United Nations. On September 4, 2007, the UN's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Ashraf Qazi as his new Special Representative in Sudan...
.
Victims
The two fatalities of Kansi's attack were Lansing H. Bennett M.D., 66, and Frank Darling, 28, both CIA employees. Bennett, with experience as a physicianPhysician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, was working as an intelligence analyst assessing the health of foreign leaders. Darling worked in covert operation
Covert operation
A covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
s.
The three people wounded in the attack were Calvin Morgan, 61, an engineer; Nicholas Starr, 60, a CIA analyst; and Stephen E. Williams, 48, an AT&T
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
employee.
Central Intelligence Agency memorial wall
CIA Memorial Wall
The Memorial Wall is a memorial at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It honors CIA employees who died in the line of service.-Memorial:...
" of stars in the foyer of the Langley headquarters building, although President Clinton, in an address to the CIA, attributed the two individuals as the 55th and 56th stars.
Route 123 Memorial
The Route 123 Memorial, consisting of a granite wall and two benches facing each other near the site of the shooting, is dedicated to Bennett and Darling. This memorial is illuminated at night. The memorial is not at the exact location of the shooting due to traffic reasons.An inscription reads:
The memorial was dedicated May 24, 2002.
Lansing Bennett Forest
A forest was renamed in Bennett's honor—the Lansing Bennett Forest in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where he was formerly chair of the Duxbury Conservation Commission.Bennett is buried in the Dennis Village Cemetery, Route 6A, north of Bourne, Massachusetts
Bourne, Massachusetts
Bourne is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 18,721 at the 2000 census.For geographic and demographic information on specific parts of the town of Bourne, please see the articles on Bourne , Buzzards Bay, Monument Beach, Pocasset, Sagamore, and Sagamore...
.
Kansi's memorial
Kasi is memorialized through a mosque built in his name as Shaheed Aimal Kasi masjid (Martyr Aimal Kasi mosque) in the port city of Ormara in Kasi's home province of Balochistan in PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
.