Aimal Kansi (born 10 February or 22 October 1964 – 14 November 2002) was a
Pakistani national who was convicted of the
1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters
On January 25, 1993, outside the George Bush Center for Intelligence, the CIA headquarters campus in Langley, Virginia, Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi killed two CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight and wounded three ...
in
Langley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Langley is often used as a metonym for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as it is home to its headquarters, the Geor ...
. In the incident, Kansi killed two
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
employees and wounded three others. He soon fled to
Kandahar
Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, which later became a
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
stronghold, and went into hiding for four years. While in Pakistan, he was caught and arrested by the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
with help from Pakistani police forces. After being returned to the U.S., he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in 2002.
Background
Kansi was an ethnic
Pashtun
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...
born on either 10 February 1964 or 22 October 1964 or 1 January 1967 in
Quetta
Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه) is the tenth List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in Geography of Pakistan, south-west of the country close to the ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. He entered the United States in 1991 under the name Mir Aimal Kansi and brought a substantial sum of cash which he had inherited in 1989 upon the death of his father. He traveled on forged papers that he had purchased in
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...
, Pakistan. He had altered his name to "Kansi" and later bought a fake
US green card
A green card, known officially as a permanent resident card, is an identity document which shows that a person has permanent residency in the United States. ("The term 'lawfully admitted for permanent residence' means the status of having been ...
in
Miami, Florida
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
.
[Stein, J.]
Convicted assassin: 'I wanted to shoot the CIA director'
, Salon.com, 22 January 1998.
He stayed with a
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
friend, Zahid Mir,
[Davis, P. & Glod, M.]
CIA Shooter Kansi, Harbinger of Terror, Set to Die Tonight
, ''Washington Post'', 14 November 2002. in his
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226.
Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City movem ...
apartment, and he worked for a courier service.
[Justice A. Christian Compton]
Virginia Supreme Court Opinion on Mir Aimal Kansi
6 November 1998. That 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
eremostly people who work for CIA."
According to Kansi, he first began to think of attacking CIA personnel after he bought a
Chinese-made AK-47 from a
Chantilly, Virginia
Chantilly is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Fairfax County, Virginia. The population was 24,301 as of the 2020 census. Chantilly is named after an early-19th-century mansion and farm, which in turn took the name of an 18th-century p ...
gun store. The plan soon became "more important than any other thing to
im"
Shootings
On 25 January 1993, Kansi stopped his borrowed brown
Datsun
Datsun (, ) was an automobile brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986, but relaunche ...
station wagon
A station wagon ( US, also wagon) or estate car ( UK, also estate), is an automotive 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 ( ...
[Bill Miller. "Gunsmith Says Tip on Kansi Went Unheeded; ATF Disputes Employee's Account", ''Washington Post, ''12 February 1993] behind a number of vehicles waiting at a red traffic light on the eastbound side of
Route 123,
Fairfax County
Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...
. The vehicles were waiting to make a left turn into the main entrance of CIA headquarters. Kansi emerged from his vehicle with his semi-automatic
Type 56 assault rifle
The Type 56 (; literally; "Assault Rifle, Model of 1956") is a Chinese 7.62×39mm rifle. It is a variant of the Soviet-designed AK-47 (specifically Type 3) and AKM rifles.Miller, David (2001). ''The Illustrated Directory of 20th Century Guns''. ...
and proceeded to move among the lines of vehicles, firing a total of 10 rounds into them,
[Benjamin, Daniel & Steven Simon. "The Age of Sacred Terror", 2002] 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.
Kansi returned to his vehicle and drove to a nearby park. After 90 minutes of waiting, he realized that he was not being actively sought; he then drove back to his Reston apartment.
At the time, reports said police were looking for a white male in his twenties and that the shooting was not thought to be directly connected to the CIA. He hid the rifle in a green plastic bag under a sofa, went to a
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
to eat, and booked himself into a
Days Inn
Days Inn is a hotel chain headquartered in the United States. It was founded in 1970 by Cecil B. Day, who opened the first location in Tybee Island, Georgia. The brand is now a part of the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, headquartered in Parsippan ...
for the night. The
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
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 CIA employees because, "I was really 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
WTTG (channel 5) is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outlet WDCA (channel 20). WTTG and WDCA share ...
.
[ARCHIVES CN]
Pakistani man executed for CIA killings
15 November 2002
On 16 February 1993, Kansi, then a
fugitive
A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also known ...
, had been charged
''in absentia''. The charges involved the capital murder of Darling, the murder of Bennett, and three counts of malicious wounding for the other victims, along with related firearms charges.
Arrest and rendition
In May 1997, an informant walked into the
U.S. consulate
The United States has the second most Diplomatic mission, diplomatic missions of any country in the world List of diplomatic missions of China, after Mainland China, including 166 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, as well as obse ...
in Karachi and claimed he could help lead them to Kansi. As proof, he showed a copy of a driver's license application made by Kansi under a false name but bearing his photograph. Apparently, the people who had been sheltering Kansi wanted the multimillion-dollar reward offer for his capture. Kansi stated, "I want to make it clear
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
the people who tricked me
..were
Pushtuns
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...
, they were owners of land in the
Leghari and Khosa clan areas in
Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan (), abbreviated as D.G. Khan, is a city in the southwestern part of Punjab, Pakistan. It is the 19th largest city of Pakistan by population. Lying west of the Indus River, it is the headquarters of Dera Ghazi Khan District and ...
, but I will never name them."
[Hasan, K.]
How Aimal Kansi was betrayed
, ''Daily Times (Pakistan)'', 23 June 2004.
As Kansi was in the dangerous
Durand Line
The Durand Line ( ps, د ډیورنډ کرښه; ur, ), forms the Pakistan–Afghanistan border, a international land border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in South Asia. The western end runs to the border with Iran and the eastern end to th ...
border region, the informant was told to lure Kansi into Pakistan, where he could be more easily apprehended. Kansi was tempted with a lucrative business offer, smuggling Russian electronic goods into Pakistan, which brought him to Dera Ghazi Khan, in the
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
province of Pakistan, where he checked into a room at the Shalimar Hotel.
At 4 a.m. on 15 June 1997, an armed team of FBI officers, working with the Pakistani
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ur, , bayn khadamatiy mukhabarati) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant ...
, raided Kansi's hotel room. His fingerprints were taken on the scene, confirming his identity. Sources disagree as to where Kansi was taken next. US authorities claim it was a holding facility run by Pakistani authorities,
but Pakistani sources claim it was the
US embassy in Islamabad,
before he was flown to the U.S. on 17 June in a
C-141
The Lockheed C-141 Starlifter is a retired military strategic airlifter that served with the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), its successor organization the Military Airlift Command (MAC), and finally the Air Mobility Command (AMC) of the ...
transport.
[Khan, R.]
In search of truth
, ''DAWN'', 24 November 2002. During the flight, Kansi made full oral and written confessions to the FBI.
Trial
During Kansi's trial, the defense introduced testimony from Dr.
Richard Restak
Richard Restak (born 1942) 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 ...
, a
neurologist
Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...
and
neuropsychiatrist
Neuropsychiatry or Organic Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neurop ...
, that Kansi was missing tissue from his
frontal lobes
The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove betwe ...
, a congenital defect that made it hard for him to judge the consequence of his actions. That testimony was reiterated by another
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
for the defense, based upon independent examination.
Kansi was tried in front of a jury at the Fairfax County Courthouse in
Fairfax, Virginia
The City of Fairfax ( ), colloquially known as Fairfax City, Downtown Fairfax, Old Town Fairfax, Fairfax Courthouse, FFX, or simply Fairfax, is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth ...
over a period of ten days in November 1997; he had pleaded not guilty to all charges. The jury found him guilty and recommended the death penalty for the capital murder charge.
On 4 February 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. His other sentences of
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
for the first-degree murder of Bennett, a 60-year sentence for the three malicious woundings, and fines totaling $600,000
were rendered moot by his execution.
Execution and burial
Kansi was executed by
lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...
on 14 November 2002, at
Greensville Correctional Center
Greensville Correctional Center is a prison facility located in unincorporated Greensville County, Virginia, near Jarratt. The prison, on a plot of land, is operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections. "901 Corrections Way Jarratt, VA 238 ...
, near
Jarratt, Virginia
Jarratt is a town in Greensville and Sussex counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 652 at the 2020 census. In 1848, Jarratt was a stop on the Petersburg Railroad. Jaratt was incorporated in 1938.
Geography
Jarratt is locate ...
.
Kansi's body was repatriated to Pakistan; his funeral was attended by the entire civil hierarchy of
Balochistan
Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. ...
, the local
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army (, ) is the Army, land service branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The roots of its modern existence trace back to the British Indian Army that ceased to exist following the partition of India, Partition of British India, wh ...
Corps Commander and the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States,
Ashraf Jahangir Qazi.
["Pakistan's Foreign Policy Predicaments Post 9/11"]
See also
*
Capital punishment in the United States
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 s ...
*
Capital punishment in Virginia
Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in Unit ...
*
List of people executed in Virginia
This is a list of people executed in Virginia after 1976. The Supreme Court decision in ''Gregg v. Georgia'', issued in 1976, allowed for the reinstitution of the death penalty in the United States. Capital punishment in Virginia was abolished by t ...
*
List of people executed in the United States in 2002
This is a list of people executed in the United States in 2002. Seventy-one people were executed in the United States in 2002. Thirty-three of them were in the state of Texas. Two (Lynda Lyon Block and Aileen Carol Wuornos) were female. One (Lynd ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kansi, Mir Aimal
1964 births
2002 deaths
20th-century criminals
21st-century executions by Virginia
Central Intelligence Agency
Executed assassins
Executed Pakistani people
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
Fugitives
Pakistani people convicted of murder
Pakistani people executed abroad
People convicted of murder by Virginia
People executed by Virginia by lethal injection
People executed for murder
People from Quetta
University of Balochistan alumni
Pakistani expatriates in the United States