A US federal judge yesterday condemned Ramzi Ahmed Yousef as an "apostle of evil" and sentenced him to life in prison for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Centre explosion and a plot to bomb a dozen passenger jets.
US District Judge Kevin Duffy sentenced Yousef to 240 years in virtual solitary confinement and said only family members could visit him. He said Yousef should be quarantined as having a "virus that causes plague and pestilence throughout the world".
Yousef claimed to be a Muslim fundamentalist but he actually cared nothing for the religion, the judge said, adding: "You adored not Allah but the evil you had become. I must say as an apostle of evil, you have been most effective."
The judge also fined Yousef $4.5 million (£3.3 million) and ordered restitution in the amount of $250 million.
Yousef (29), who has used about a dozen aliases, has said his real name is Abdul-Basit Balochi, that he is from Pakistan, and was a trained electronics engineer and explosives expert. He gave his birthdate as April 27th, 1968.
In a 1994 interview with the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat, Yousef said that while his father is Pakistani, his mother is Palestinian and that his grandmother lived in Haifa, Israel. He also said he grew up in Kuwait.
Before being sentenced, Yousef spoke for about 20 minutes criticising the US for its support of Israel.
"Yes I am a terrorist and I'm proud of it. I support terrorism as long as it is used against the US and Israel. You are more than terrorists. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites," he said. "You keep talking about terrorism to the media, but behind closed doors you support terrorism."
Yousef was convicted in November 1997 of orchestrating the World Trade Centre explosion on February 26th, 1993, in which six people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.
The jury also convicted Eyad Ismoil (26), accused of being the driver of the van used in the blast. He will be sentenced next month.
Yousef was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan, in February 1995 and returned to the US. He was convicted of the bombing in November 1997 and of the airline plot in September 1996.
Prosecutors said the Trade Centre explosion was a "twisted form of protest" to punish the US for its support of Israel. During the trial, a Secret Service agent testified that Yousef had boasted about planning the attack and said he had hoped one tower would fall on the other, killing at least 250,000 Americans.
In Yousef's earlier conviction, he was found guilty of plotting what prosecutors called "48 hours of terror in the sky" by scheming to bomb a dozen US passenger jets.