Name Mohammed Salameh | ||
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Born September 1, 1967 (age 56) ( 1967-09-01 ) Residence ADX Florence, the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Known for 1993 World Trade Center bombing | ||
Mohammed A. Salameh (Arabic: محمد سلامة) (born September 1, 1967) is a convicted perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is currently an inmate at ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado.
Salameh entered the United States on a six-month tourist visa in 1988, but overstayed it and was in the country illegally at the time of the WTC attack. Salameh applied for immigration amnesty under a 1986 law that set up the Special Agricultural Worker (SAW) program, though he was never eligible. Once he had applied, however, he was guaranteed work permits and amnesty until the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) could rule on his applications. It took the INS nearly five years to decide he was not eligible for any of the programs he had applied for. Despite the denial and despite having no authority to be in the United States, he was not deported.
Salameh's 1978 Chevy Nova was used to ferry the nitric acid and urea used to construct the bomb used in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
On March 4, 1993, the FBI arrested Salameh after he, having reported that his rental van was stolen, met with undercover FBI agent Bill Atkinson posing as a Ryder "loss prevention analyst". Earlier, the FBI traced the Ford Econoline van used in the World Trade Center bombing via vehicle identification number.
Despite failing his driving test four times, Salameh was the driver for the group. On January 24, 1993 he jumped a curb and tore the undercarriage from his car, injuring himself and Ramzi Yousef. He was checked out of Rahway Hospital the following day, and went to the garage to clean his car while Yousef remained in the hospital for four more days.
With his Nova in for repairs, Salameh got Nidal Ayyad to use his corporate account with Allied Signal to rent him a new car; although he got in a car accident again on February 16, colliding with a car.
Salameh's family fled the West Bank in 1967, owing to the Third Arab-Israeli War.
Salameh was sentenced to 240 years in prison.
Possible linkage to the Rabbi Meir Kahane murder
Per an article in the Jerusalem Post of which, in turn, is quoting from the mid August 2010 issue of Playboy, El Sayyid Nosair, who had been acquitted of the murder of Meir Kahane, nevertheless had claimed that he had two partners with him:
He (Mr. Nosair) added that on the night he shot Kahane dead, he was accompanied by two co-conspirators to the Marriot Hotel in Manhattan where Kahane was speaking – one of whom was also carrying a gun.
The men, Bilal al-Kaisi of Jordan and Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian illegal alien later involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, have never been charged for their part in the slaying."