Ramzi Ahmed Yousef (Urdu: رمزى احمد يوسف; born 27 April 1968) is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators and mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1994 bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434; he was also a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. His profession was electrical engineering.
In 1995, Yousef was arrested by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service in a joint operation at a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, while trying to set a bomb in a doll, then extradited to the United States. Yousef was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York along with two co-conspirators and was convicted. He received two life sentences plus 240 years for his part in the World Trade Center bombing and the Bojinka plot.
Yousef is serving his sentence at ADX Florence, located near Florence, Colorado. He shared a cell block that is commonly referred to as "Bombers' Row" with Terry Nichols, Eric Rudolph, and Ted Kaczynski, before the latter's transfer in late 2021.
Yousef's maternal uncle is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with whom he allegedly planned the Bojinka plot. Mohammed is a senior al-Qaeda member accused of being the principal architect of the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The name "Ramzi Ahmed Yousef" is a pseudonym. Yousef's real name is unknown, although the 9/11 Commission believes that his real name is assumed to be Abdul Basit Mahmoud Abdul Karim. He was born on 27 April 1968, in Kuwait to a Baloch family. His father is believed to be Mohammed Abdul Karim from Balochistan, Pakistan. His mother is believed to be the sister of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
In 1986, he enrolled at Swansea Institute in Wales, where he studied electrical engineering, graduating four years later. He also studied at the Oxford College of Further Education to improve his English.
Yousef left the United Kingdom after completing his studies and returned to Pakistan. He began to learn bomb making in a terrorist training camp in Peshawar, before traveling to the United States in 1992.
1993 World Trade Center bombing
The World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on 26 February 1993, when a van bomb was detonated below Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,500 lb (680 kg) urea nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower 1) into the South Tower (Tower 2), to bring both towers down and kill thousands of people. It failed to do so, but killed six civilians and injured 1,042, including 919 civilians (including an EMS worker), 88 firefighters, and 35 police officers.
Ramzi Yousef sent a letter to The New York Times after the bombing that expressed his motive:
We are, the fifth battalion in the Liberation Army, declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.
1 – Stop all military, economical, and political aid to Israel.
2 – All diplomatic relations with Israel must stop.
3 – Not to interfere with any of the Middle East countries interior affairs.
If our demands are not met, all of our functional groups in the army will continue to execute our missions against the military and civilian targets in and out the United States. For your own information, our army has more than hundred and fifty suicidal soldiers ready to go ahead. The terrorism that Israel practices (which is supported by America) must be faced with a similar one. The dictatorship and terrorism (also supported by America) that some countries are practicing against their own people must also be faced with terrorism.
The American people must know, that their civilians who got killed are not better than those who are getting killed by the American weapons and support.
The American people are responsible for the actions of their government and they must question all of the crimes that their government is committing against other people. Or they — Americans — will be the targets of our operations that could diminish them.
On 1 September 1992, Yousef entered the United States with an Iraqi passport of disputed authenticity. His companion, Ahmed Ajaj, carried multiple immigration documents, among which was a crudely falsified Swedish passport. Providing a smokescreen to facilitate Yousef's entry, Ajaj was arrested on the spot when immigration officials found bomb manuals, videotapes of suicide car bombers, and a cheat sheet on how to lie to U.S. immigration inspectors in his luggage. Directors of the American Counter-Terrorism program later tied the travel arrangements to a phone call from Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian militant Muslim preacher, to the Pakistani telephone number 810604.