Man To Die For Killing Cia Workers

Mir Aimal Kasi was sentenced to death Friday for a 1993 shooting rampage outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., an attack he described in a short courtroom speech as a response to America’s “wrong policy” toward Muslim countries.

The 33-year-old Pakistani, speaking in public for the first time, told Fairfax (Va.) Circuit Court Judge J. Howe Brown Jr., that he expected no “justice or mercy.” Kasi showed no reaction when Brown imposed the death sentence, which had been recommended by a jury.

Brown brushed off an emotional plea from Fairfax Public Defender Richard C. Goemann to spare his client’s life because Kasi suffers brain damage.

“Mr. Kasi planned to shoot innocent people,” Brown said. “He shot Frank Darling and returned to blow part of his head off while his wife sat beside him. He planned this killing. His acts were the product of a depraved mind, but not a brain-damaged mind.”

A Fairfax jury convicted Kasi of capital murder for the attack on Jan. 25, 1993, when he jumped from his car with an assault rifle and fired into cars waiting to turn into the CIA’s Langley headquarters. Killed were Darling, who worked in covert operations, and Lansing H. Bennett, 66, a physician and CIA analyst. Three men were wounded: Nicholas Starr, an intelligence analyst; Calvin R. Morgan, an engineer; and Stephen E. Williams, an AT&T employee.

“I don’t feel proud for it,” Kasi said. “This is the result of the wrong policy toward Islamic countries. I don’t expect any justice or mercy from this country or court.”

As the judge imposed the sentence in the packed courtroom, Judy Becker-Darling, who was in the car with her husband during the attack, stifled sobs.

“The trial for us is over,” said Darling’s father-in-law, Richard Becker. “Five years of hell is over. Whether we believe in the death penalty or not, justice has been served. Let’s move forward.”