Ex-al-Qaeda Member Referred to Prosecutors for 1994 Plane Blast over Okinawa

Tokyo, March 25 (Jiji Press)–The police department of Okinawa Prefecture, southernmost Japan, on Wednesday sent papers on a former senior member of the al-Qaeda terrorist group to public prosecutors over an explosion on a flight in 1994, which killed a Japanese passenger. Ramzi Yousef, 57, who has Iraqi citizenship, is alleged to have detonated an explosive on a Philippine Airlines passenger flight from Manila to Narita International Airport near Tokyo around 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 11, 1994, when the aircraft was flying over the Daito Islands in Okinawa. A 24-year-old Japanese male company employee was killed, and 10 others were injured. A total of 293 passengers and crew members were on the flight. The latest move by the Okinawa police effectively put an end to law-enforcement authorities’ investigation into the case as Yousef has been imprisoned for life in the United States. The police department recently identified Yousef as the suspect after interviewing passengers, examining the aircraft body and exchanging information with U.S. and Philippine investigative authorities. Philippine police concluded in February 1995 that Yousef was the mastermind behind the explosion. Yousef had been wanted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation for an explosion at a World Trade Center building in New York in February 1993. After being arrested in Pakistan in February 1995, he was extradited to the United States and sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. federal court over the incident. Yousef is believed to have drawn up the unexecuted Bojinka plot, which would blow up 12 U.S. passenger flights in Asia. The 1994 attack on the Philippine Airlines flight is believed to have been a rehearsal for the Bojinka plot. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]