[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 58 (Wednesday, March 29, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E732-E733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  BOMB SUSPECT SAYS U.S. MERITS ATTACK

                                 ______


                          HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 29, 1995
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to call attention to recent comments 
by Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the man arrested in Pakistan for engineering the 
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
  With all of the gall he could muster, this terrorist stated that 
America deserved to be attacked because of our support for Israel. 
While denying carrying out the bombing which killed or injured many 
innocent civilians, Yousef stated: ``The ability of Israel to commit 
these crimes is the direct result of the considerable military and 
financial aid which the United States of America provides annually to 
Israel, and it is this aid which gives Palestinians and Lebanese the 
right to attack U.S. targets.''
  A March 25, 1995, article in The New York Times, entitled ``Bomb 
Suspect Says the U.S. Merits Attack'', gives substantial coverage of 
this outrage. I insert a copy of this article to be printed in the 
Record at this point.
  Bomb Suspect Says the U.S. Merits Attack; He Avows Innocence in the 
                           Trade Center Plot

                      (By James C. McKinley, Jr.)

       Ignoring the advice of his lawyer, the man accused of 
     engineering the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center 
     released a diatribe yesterday saying that Palestinians had a 
     right to attack the United States for its support of Israel.
       In an eight-page statement, the man the authorities call 
     Ramzi Ahmed Yousef said that his real name was Abdul-Basit 
     Balochi and that he was an electronics engineer and 
     explosives expert. He said he came from Pakistan and had 
     family in both Iraq and Israel. He also claimed to have 
     ``friends and relatives who were killed in Palestine by the 
     Israeli Army.''
       The statement, released yesterday by Mr. Yousef's court-
     appointed lawyer, was the first public comment from the trade 
     center suspect since he was arrested in Pakistan last month, 
     two years after the bombing that killed 6 and injured more 
     than 1,000.
       But it failed to clear up some of the central mysteries in 
     the case, including the true identity of the suspect. And it 
     was unclear what motivated him to make the statement, since 
     some of the remarks could be used against him in court.
       Mr. Yousef said he believed the state of Israel had no 
     legal right to be established in Palestine and accused the 
     Israeli Government of ``systematic murder, torture, 
     imprisonment and deportation'' of Palestinians.
       ``The ability of Israel to commit these crimes is the 
     direct result of the considerable military and financial aid 
     which the United States of America provides annually to 
     Israel, and it is this aid which gives Palestinians and 
     Lebanese the right to attack United States targets,'' Mr. 
     Yousef said in the statement.
       Mr. Yousef's lawyer, Roy R. Kulcsar, said he had advised 
     Mr. Yousef against releasing the statement before his trial. 
     ``I told him that if it were me in his position, I would not 
     make such a statement,'' Mr. Kulcsar said.
       ``I think he regards himself as a political prisoner, and 
     part of that is the circumstances under which he was brought 
     back to the United States,'' Mr. Kulcsar added. ``He 
     certainly feels the treatment he has received is because of 
     his views.''
       Mr. Kulcsar said Mr. Yousef's statement was not a 
     confession. He said Mr. Yousef still maintains that he is 
     innocent and intends to fight the charges in court. The 
     lawyer said his client was neither cooperating with the 
     Government nor exploring a plea bargain agreement.
       Prosecutors have depicted Mr. Yousef as a professional 
     terrorist who was the mastermind of the bombing of the World 
     Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993. Four other men were convicted 
     last year in connection with the bombing, but Mr. Yousef and 
     a sixth man escaped.
       Since he was arrested and flown back to the United States, 
     Mr. Yousef's real identity has continued to be a mystery for 
     the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States 
     Attorney's office in Manhattan. No one knows for certain who 
     he is or where he was born. More important, it is still 
     unclear who provided the financial backing for the trade 
     center bombing.
       Abdel Basit Abdel Karim was the name Mr. Yousef used when 
     he obtained a Pakistani passport from Pakistan's Consulate 
     General office in New York in 1992. It was under this name 
     that he reportedly left the country just hours after the 
     explosion and flew to Pakistan.
       Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was the name on a valid Iraqi passport 
     that Mr. Yousef presented to United States officials when he 
     arrived in New York on a plane from Pakistan in September 
     1992.
       He immediately demanded asylum, and officials took his 
     fingerprints as part of the application. Prosecutors say 
     those fingerprints later turned up in the storage shed where 
     they believe the trade center bomb was made.
       The surname Balochi is common in the region known as 
     Baluchistan, a remote and lawless border area between Iran, 
     Afghanistan and Pakistan. Law-enforcement sources said they 
     had never heard Mr. Yousef called by that name before. When 
     Mr. Yousef was arrested, Pakistani officials said they 
     believed he came from the area.
       Mr. Yousef's statement, however, suggests that he is 
     Palestinian and even has relatives who were killed in the 
     struggle against Israel. Calling Israel ``an illegal and 
     unlawful state,'' Mr. Yousef said that the Israeli lands 
     should be returned to Arabs and that an international court 
     should be convened to try the Israeli Government for war 
     crimes.
       [[Page E733]] ``Since the U.S. Government, every year, 
     sends military and financial aid worth hundreds of millions 
     of dollars to Israel, which is being used to support the 
     Israeli occupation, as well as the crimes and slaughters 
     which were and are being carried out by the Israeli Army, all 
     Muslims, Palestinians and Lebanese have the right to regard 
     themselves in a state of war with the U.S. Government,'' he 
     wrote.
       Mr. Yousef then tried to justify attacks against United 
     States targets as acts of war and compared them with the 
     bombing attacks on Japan by the United States during World 
     War II, which he called ``the worst terrorist acts in human 
     history.''
       The United States Attorney's office had no official comment 
     on Mr. Yousef's remarks, but prosecutors said privately there 
     was little doubt that the statement would be used against Mr. 
     Yousef during his trial since it provides a clear motive for 
     the attack.
     

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