Pakistani Convicted of Killing 2 at CIA

A Pakistani immigrant was convicted Monday of murdering two CIA employees and wounding three others during a shooting rampage in rush-hour traffic outside agency headquarters four years ago and now faces a possible death sentence.

The conviction of Mir Aimal Kasi, 33, capped a lengthy international manhunt by the FBI, which captured him last June in a hotel in Pakistan. He signed a statement admitting his guilt while flying back to the United States with American agents.

Defense lawyers were unsuccessful in suppressing that statement and did not call any witnesses for Kasi or allow him to testify. Instead, they told jurors that prosecutors did not prove Kasi intended to kill anyone, a contention the jury rejected.

Defense lawyer Frank Romano urged jurors to maintain a presumption of Kasi’s innocence and question how the FBI obtained a written confession while Kasi was shackled, fatigued and confused on his return flight.

Kasi’s lawyers also have suggested that they hope to avoid a death sentence by arguing during the trial’s penalty phase that he was brain-damaged at the time of the killings.

A defense document made public early in the trial said that a brain scan showed lesions on Kasi’s frontal lobe, an area that controls the ability to appreciate the consequences of one’s actions.

According to legal experts, the lawyers decided against mounting an insanity defense during the trial for fear it would anger jurors and be rejected. Instead, they hope to spare Kasi from a death sentence by arguing during the trial’s second phase, which begins today, that he suffers a mental deficiency.

Kasi could face capital punishment for one of the two murders he committed: the killing of Frank A. Darling, 28, who worked in covert operations for the CIA. A charge of capital murder requires proof that a killing was deliberate. Darling was shot four times.

Virginia State Judge J. Howe Brown Jr. sentenced Kasi for the other killing after the verdict Monday. He was ordered to serve a life sentence for the first-degree murder of Lansing H. Bennett, 66, a physician and intelligence analyst, and 20 years each for three counts of malicious wounding of the other three employees.

The five employees were shot as Kasi moved methodically from car to car stalled in rush-hour traffic outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., firing his Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifle. He fled to Pakistan hours later.

Prosecutors showed during the trial that Kasi, whose name U.S. investigators originally listed as “Kansi,” had told FBI agents that he fired into the cars “to teach a lesson to the United States government.” He was enraged over the U.S. bombing of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War and the deaths of thousands of Muslims, officials said.

The bearded defendant showed no emotion as he heard the verdict, which came after four hours of deliberation at the end of a six-day trial.

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Fairfax County Prosecutor Robert Horan Jr. told jurors in his closing argument that Kasi was “a man with a mission” the day of the shooting. “His mission included shooting innocent people while they were defenseless--not a chance of escaping--people whom he didn’t even know. He was making a statement.”

Besides Kasi’s confession, which Brown ruled Kasi could not suppress since he lacked U.S. constitutional rights, Horan put on other pieces of strong evidence: the murder weapon found in Kasi’s apartment after he fled, fingerprints left at the scene and witnesses who identified him.

Kasi is a member of a wealthy family in Quetta, Pakistan.