Man executed for killing CIA employees

A Pakistani man who killed two CIA employees in a 1993 shooting rampage outside the agency’s US headquarters has been executed as the government warned of global retaliation against Americans.

Aimal Khan Kasi, 38, died today by injection at the Greensville Correctional Centre in Virginia at 2.07am Irish time.

"There is no god but Allah," Kasi said, softly chanting in his native tongue until he lost consciousness.

Hours before the execution, the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal and Governor Mark Warner denied a request for clemency, saying Kasi has “shown absolutely no remorse for his actions”.

Kasi killed CIA communications worker Frank Darling, 28, and CIA analyst and physician Lansing Bennett, 66, as they sat in their cars at a traffic light in McLean. Three other men – an engineer, an AT&T employee and a CIA analyst – were wounded as Kasi walked along a row of stopped cars, shooting into them with a semiautomatic AK-47 rifle.

He fled the country and spent most of the next four and a half years hiding in and around the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. He was caught in a hotel while visiting Pakistan and was returned to the US.

Kasi confessed to the killings during the return flight, saying he was angry over CIA meddling in Muslim nations.

Security around Greensville was greatly increased, according to a prison source, but the only evidence was two correctional officers with shotguns standing on each side of the road near the prison entrance, and several officers with sidearms in front of the prison.

Kasi spent the day in a cell only a few feet from Virginia’s death chamber. He met with two of his brothers, his lawyers and his spiritual adviser, corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said. No family members of the victims attended the execution.

Charles Burke, one of Kasi’s defence lawyers, declined to say what the funeral arrangements were or when the body would be claimed. Kasi’s family said he would be buried next to his father in a graveyard of fellow tribesman near his hometown of Quetta.

Some Pakistani politicians pleaded with US officials to spare Kasi’s life, saying commutation could “win the hearts of millions” and help the US in its war on terrorism. Hundreds of religious students protested in Pakistan this week, warning Americans there that they will not be safe if Kasi was executed.

Last week, the State Department warned that Kasi’s execution could lead to acts of vengeance against Americans everywhere. Two days after his conviction, assailants shot and killed four American oil company workers in Karachi, Pakistan.

Kasi told The Associated Press in an interview last week that he had no regrets about the killings but did not want any retaliation for his execution. Kasi’s family near Quetta, Pakistan, also pleaded for calm.

“Kasis are a peaceful tribe. We want peaceful solutions to every problem,” said his older brother, Nasibullah Kasi. “We do not want the Kasi name to be used to harm anybody.”

The family of Judy Becker-Darling, widow of Frank Darling, also hoped for calm.

“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,” the family said in a statement.

State Police and other agencies increased security in northern Virginia and around Richmond’s Capitol Square.

“Someone with national and even international credentials like this, it mandates that we take extra precautions,” said Colonel Gerald Massengill, head of the Virginia State Police.