Iraq Bombing Angered Kasi, Jury Is Told

FAIRFAX, Va. — A Pakistani man went on a deadly shooting rampage outside CIA headquarters in 1993 because he was enraged over the U.S. bombing of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

When Mir Aimal Kasi was captured in Pakistan in July, he admitted to the FBI that he killed two CIA workers and injured three others outside the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters on Jan. 25, 1993, the prosecutor said. Kasi was quoted as telling agents that he was angry because the United States had bombed Iraq and because America exerted too much influence abroad, especially in Muslim nations.

Kasi, 33, could get the death penalty if convicted of murder. He also faces malicious wounding and weapons charges.

Kasi’s lawyer, Frank Romano, said the defense agrees that the AK-47 rifle found in Kasi’s apartment belonged to him and that spent bullet casings bore Kasi’s fingerprints.

But he told the jury: “Your function is to determine whether the 10 charges against Mr. Kasi are proven at the end of this case.”

Judy Becker Darling was among the first witnesses to describe the carnage left by a man with an AK-47 as he walked among cars waiting in rush-hour traffic.

In a soft, strained voice, Darling said she ducked down in her car.

“When I looked up, Frank was shot in the head,” Judy Darling said of her husband as she began weeping. “There was skin hanging everywhere, and I just jumped out of the car and ran.”

Frank Darling and fellow CIA employee Lansing Bennett were the two killed in the attack.