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Mockingbird Metamorphosis: The Langley entrance shooting spree, 25 Jan 1993


Paul Rigby

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On 26 January 1993, the Guardian carried a surprisingly short report from the paper’s then Washington correspondent on a dramatic shooting spree right outside the entrance to CIA’s Langley HQ. The germane passages follow:

Martin Walker, “Gunman flees after two die outside CIA headquarters,” The Guardian, 26 January 1993:

Two people died and three were wounded when an unidentified gunman in camouflage clothes ambushed the morning rush hour traffic entering the most closely guarded building in the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters at Langley, Virginia.

Police with helicopters, squad cars and on foot pursued the gunman, who witnesses said was armed with a Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle. White, young, with brown hair and “an ice-cold stare”, he made his escape into the network of roads through the wooded suburbs around the CIA building.

“There were two lanes of traffic. He was facing them as they were going into the CIA,” said ambassador-at-large Gilbert Robinson, who was driving into the building as the shooting began. “He was pointing the barrel first at one side, then the other, and shooting into the cars.”

So far, so clear: Witnesses were numerous, close, and presumably expert observers, many of them being career spooks. There was a rapid, large-scale pursuit. A young, white gunman did it.. Until, that is, the NYT of 27 January 1993:

Neil A. Lewis, “Tranquil Campus of C.I.A. Is Shaken by Killings of Two,” NYT, 27 January 1993, p.A10:

“The gunman, according to witnesses, …got in his car and drove away…

David Franklin, the commander of the major crimes unit of the Fairfax County Police, told a news conference that… the police now believe that the killer had a swarthy appearance…

“Some of the descriptions that we got did indicate a dark-complexioned, possibly dark curly hair, possibly Middle Eastern, Greek, of that type,” Officer Franklin said. The police said the assailant appeared to be in his early or mid-30s.”

On 10 February, the Guardian, playing a straight bat, though not necessarily maintaining a straight face, informed readers that “Police yesterday launched a worldwide manhunt for a Pakistani gunman…named…as Mir Aimal Kansi, aged 28” (Agencies, “Pakistani sought for CIA killings,” The Guardian, 10 February 1993.)

Four days later, the (London) Sunday Times offered an explanation for the initial eyewitness “confusion”:

Ahmed Rashid (Islamabad) and James Adams (Washington), “Search for CIA killer moves to Pakistan desert,” Sunday Times, 14 February 1993:

Although many of those who saw the attack were CIA agents, police were unable to get an accurate description of the gunman.

Some obliging soul – Martin Walker, perhaps - should really have sent David Franklin, the commander of the major crimes unit of the Fairfax County Police, a copy of the Guardian’s initial brief despatch on the shooting.

In late January 1998, the Guardian noted the effective end of the affair – justice done, honour satisfied – in a laconic piece in its “News in brief” column:

AP, “Death sentence for CIA shooter,” The Guardian, 24 January 1998, p.16:

A man who shot dead two motorists outside the CIA headquarters because he wanted to make a statement about US interference in Muslim countries was yesterday sentenced to death.

Mir Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani, fired an assault rifle at motorists stuck in morning rush hour traffic exactly five years ago tomorrow. He was arrested last June in Pakistan.

During the trial, witnesses said Kasi stopped his car near a traffic light just outside the gates to the CIA complex in Langley, Virginia…

Kasi did not testify at his trial, but told the judge that his actions were “the result of a wrong policy toward Muslim countries. I don’t expect any justice or mercy from your country or this court.”

Talented coves, these Muslim terrorists. Not only are they blessed with the power of foresight - being able to anticipate massive US defence drills, and thus plan multiple, simultaneous attacks accordingly - but also the ability to change colour. Remarkable.

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Uuuuh Paul

Nice theory but it brakes down on a few issues, Mir Aimal Kansi:

1 – Freely admitted he did it and said why.

2 - Was IDed by witnesses and the gun was found in his apartment along with clothing containing glass shards from victims’ cars. He bought a ticket for Pakistan shortly afterwards for that day. His roommate reported him missing.

3 – Was very light-skinned, light enough to pass for a slightly tanned white person. Have you ever been near someone shooting? I doubt it, a person’s normal reaction is to find cover or get away rather than try to get a good look at the shooter. I was at a street party in Brazil where shooting broke out and though I was only a few feet from the gunman I doubt I could have given a reasonable description of him till he ran out of bullets and was subdued by other revelers. Google “Rashomon effect” which doesn't include the effect of the distraction of being shot at.

kasi_aima_mir021115.jpg

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2002/11/18/Kasi_021118.html

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Nice theory but it brakes down on a few issues, Mir Aimal Kansi:

1 – Freely admitted he did it and said why.

Those ISI interrogators - such gentle souls.

2 - Was IDed by witnesses and the gun was found in his apartment along with clothing containing glass shards from victims’ cars. He bought a ticket for Pakistan shortly afterwards for that day. His roommate reported him missing.

My used car emporium beckons, Len..."glass shards...bought a ticket for Pakistan...reported missing" - proof positive, indeed.

3 – Was very light-skinned, light enough to pass for a slightly tanned white person. Have you ever been near someone shooting?

Why not go the whole hog, Len, and give him pink eyes - now a Pakistani albino, there's a runner!

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Nice theory but it brakes down on a few issues, Mir Aimal Kansi:

1 – Freely admitted he did it and said why.

Those ISI interrogators - such gentle souls.

He freely admitted it in open court in the US and in letters to and interviews with media outlets.

2 - Was IDed by witnesses and the gun was found in his apartment along with clothing containing glass shards from victims’ cars. He bought a ticket for Pakistan shortly afterwards for that day. His roommate reported him missing.

My used car emporium beckons, Len..."glass shards...bought a ticket for Pakistan...reported missing" - proof positive, indeed.

Never said it was proof positive but it is strongly indicative strange coincidence that if he wasn't the shooter that hours later he bought a same day ticket out of the country and left in such haste that he didn't tell his roommate he was going. The glass and gun could have been planted but it's odd if they were that neither he nor his roommate said anything about it. Do you think the local cops were in on it too?

You also ignored that he was IDed by witnesses, normally you put such a premium on eyewitness testimony.

3 – Was very light-skinned, light enough to pass for a slightly tanned white person. Have you ever been near someone shooting?

Why not go the whole hog, Len, and give him pink eyes - now a Pakistani albino, there's a runner!

I guess being shown to be wrong hurts leading you to resort to sarcasm. Almost all photos of Kansi show him to be light-skinned enough to pass as white especially by witnesses who got brief glimpses of him from inside their cars shortly after sun up as he was randomly shooting people (in their cars) with an automatic weapon.

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He freely admitted it in open court in the US and in letters to and interviews with media outlets.

But chose not to testify at his trail in Pakistan - odd, really, if he wanted to deliver his message to his home audience.

The glass and gun could have been planted but it's odd if they were that neither he nor his roommate said anything about it. Do you think the local cops were in on it too?

Given who he worked for - see below - my faith in the testimony of his roommate isn't the greatest. Planted evidence? Police in cahoots with the CIA? Unthinkable. Or may be that wasn't the case here (see final item).

You also ignored that he was IDed by witnesses, normally you put such a premium on eyewitness testimony.

Not too often you get a boat-load of eyewitnesses who openly admit to working for Langley.

I guess being shown to be wrong hurts leading you to resort to sarcasm. Almost all photos of Kansi show him to be light-skinned enough to pass as white especially by witnesses who got brief glimpses of him from inside their cars shortly after sun up as he was randomly shooting people (in their cars) with an automatic weapon.

All you've shown me, Len, is a photograph with what appears to be an unnatural light source on his face, a photograph whose provenance and handling would require a great deal more investigation than a thumbs-up from an habitual establishment shil.

And then there's the small matter of Kasi's job. Here's the aforementioned Rashid and Adams on that and other interesting bits and pieces:

"There is uncertainty on how he entered the United States. According to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, he applied for political asylum in 1991, claiming that he had entered the country through New York's Kennedy airport without being interviewed by immigation officials. In theory that is impossible; either Kansi [sic] came in some other way or he had high level help to avoid official screening. He also won a work permit without being interviewed by the INS, again breaking the rules."

Can we say "CIA"? I think we can. And just in case there's any doubt about this, we need only look at his employ at the time of the shooting. Rashid and Adams again:

Despite having a degree in English, he took a minor job as a courier - but with a company owned by Chris Marchetti, the son of Victor Marchetti, a legendary covert operator. It is the only courier company in the Washington area to deliver to the CIA headquarters.

So a man who presumably has access, but virtue of his job, to some interesting CIA locations, chooses to register his alleged protest by a harum-scarum random shooting at the entrance to a heavily guarded site when he could have pulled off something much more murderous much more easily in the course of a standard working day, and got away without a hot pursuit. Ho-hum. Yet another dog that doesn't hunt.

To finish, Rashid and Adams again:

"The police have complained that the CIA has done the bare minimum to co-operate with the investigation, fuelling suspicions that the agency may know more about the case than it has admitted so far. 'Kansi appears to be CIA-trained because he planned this so well and so methodically,' said a senior police officer involved in the search...Quetta, where Kansi's family are prominent landowners, was a key forwarding post for the CIA shipments of $6 billion of arms to the mujaheddin during the Afghan war."

The Agency burns yet another Muslim asset? The only novelty was in the location for, and the elaborateness of, the fit-up.

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He freely admitted it in open court in the US and in letters to and interviews with media outlets.
But chose not to testify at his trail in Pakistan - odd, really, if he wanted to deliver his message to his home audience.

By “home audience” did you mean Pakistanis or Americans? He was never tried in homeland. He repeatedly talked about how and why he did it to the media in both countries. Testifying or not at trial would have made little difference in the amount of publicity he got. His defense never disputed that he did it; they challenged the courts jurisdiction claiming he had been illegally removed from Pakistan. Perhaps not testifying at his US trial was his lawyer’s idea (I mistakenly indicated he had) .

A brief sampling of his statements as reported by diverse sources:

"I was real angry with the policy of the U.S. government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people," Kasi said in a prison interview with CNN affiliate WTTG.

Kasi worked for a local courier service at the time of the shooting and was familiar with the area around the CIA headquarters. He fled the scene and remained on the run for more than four years, until FBI agents in a hotel in Pakistan captured him in June 1997. According to prosecutors, he spent most of his time hiding in Afghanistan, with only occasional stops in Pakistan.

On the flight back to the United States, authorities said, he gave an oral and written confession to Garrett after signing a written rights waiver form. He was found guilty after a 10-day trial in Fairfax County in November 1997.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/14/cia.killings.execution/

He was interviewed by a Pakistani newspaper shortly before his execution:

Q: What are the causes that you have referred to?

MAK: It is their policy towards Israel and Islamic countries and my reaction. I also told this to my lawyers and to the FBI in my confession, but these people are not prepared to have it raised in court. They simply are not prepared to listen.

Q: What has the US policy towards Israel got to do with this event (the killings outside CIA in 1993)?

MAK: These people are saying that I have murdered two people and it is a capital murder case, but I tell them that this had political reasons

[…]

I have absolutely no regrets. I have absolutely no regrets. But I am sorry at the manner in which I was caught.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-11-2002_pg7_25

He wrote a series of letters to a Salon magazine columnist and went into detail about his actions and motives excerpts were published in a 2 page article:

I am not proud of what happened. I feel sad (that) the people who came under attack were not powerful people ... I wish powerful people would have come under the attack, then it would have been better,

[…]

The attack on CIA was my idea alone ... Nobody in Pakistan knew about it. I alone planned everything and did it.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/01/22news_kasi.html

I wanted to punish those who do wrong things against Muslim countries like Iraq

[…]

I started shooting at cars in front of me. When the shooting finished I was returning back to my Isuzu pickup ... I shot at him from front. I did not [go] back and to the back of his [CIA employee Frank Darling’s] car. I shot him several times from the front. I sat in my pickup and drove away

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/01/22news_kasi2.html

During the plane ride to the United States, Kasi told Garrett he wanted to "teach a lesson" to the U.S. government. "He would have killed anyone at the gates of the CIA that day," said Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., who prosecuted Kasi. "He was getting even with the CIA for the way they treated the Muslim people of the world. He was, and I believe he is, proud of what he did, and I believe he'd do it again tomorrow morning if he had the chance."

Kasi has said as much in various media interviews over the past several days. He had agreed to speak to The Washington Post but backed out moments before the scheduled interview.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer

Kansi was tried in state rather than Federal court because at time of attack Federal law did not provide a death penalty for acts of terrorism; has made clear since his conviction in November 1997 that his motive for attack was political.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DA80894D0494D81

In November 2002… when Mir Aimal Kasi, who killed several people outside of CIA headquarters in 1993, was on death row, he declared: "What I did was a retaliation against the US government" for American policy in the Middle East and its support of Israel.

William Blum citing Associated Press, November 7, 2002

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum08122003.html

"What I did was a retaliation against the U.S. government" for American policy in the Middle East and its support of Israel, he said. "It had nothing to do with terrorism."

Mr. Kasi said he did not agree with the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

"They were totally wrong," he said. "They were attacks against civilian people."

But he refused to condemn the attack on the Pentagon that same day "since the Pentagon is an agency involved in attacks against Muslim countries."

He said he has no regret about the killings he committed.

"I'm not sorry for attacking the C.I.A.," he said. "You know, I feel sorry and sad for the families of the victims. I don't say that I feel happy or proud for it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/national...cdc&ei=5070

During the flight to the United States, Kasi signed a written waiver

of his rights and gave an oral and written confession to the crimes to

Agent Garrett. The confession was summarized by the Virginia

Supreme Court as follows:

In the written statement, [Kasi] confirmed he purchased

the AK-47 rifle and about 150 rounds of ammunition several

days before the incident in question. He said he drove his

pickup truck to the scene, "got out of my vehicle & started

shooting into vehicles stopped at a red light." Continuing, he

stated that "I shot approximately 10 rounds shooting 5 peo-

ple. I aimed for the chest area of the people I shot. I then

returned to my truck & drove back to my apartment." He

also stated that "several days before the shooting I decided

to do the shooting at the CIA or the Israeli Embassy but

decided to shoot at the CIA because it was easier because

CIA officials are not armed."

As part of his oral statement to Garrett, [Kasi] enumer-

ated political reasons "why he wanted to do this shooting."

He said he was "upset" because U.S. aircraft had attacked

parts of Iraq, he was "upset with the CIA because of their

involvement in Muslim countries," and he was concerned

with "killing of Pakistanians by U.S. components." When

Garrett asked [Kasi] "why he stopped shooting," he replied

"there wasn't anybody else left to shoot." When asked about

the gender of those shot, [Kasi] replied "that he only shot

males because it would be against his religion to shoot

females."

Kasi, 508 S.E.2d at 61-62. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT – Denial of Kasi’s appeal of his conviction. (Note that he never disputed his guilt)

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getc...22P&exact=1

In the written statement, he confirmed that he purchased the AK-47 rifle and about 150 rounds of ammunition several days

before the incident.

He said he drove his pickup truck to the scene, got out of his vehicle and started shooting into vehicles stopped at a red light. Continuing, he stated: “I shot approximately 10 rounds, shooting five people. I aimed for the chest area of the people I shot. I then returned to my truck and drove back to my apartment.” He also stated that several days before the shooting he decided to do the shooting at the CIA or the Israeli embassy but decided to shoot at the CIA because it was easier because CIA officials are not armed.

http://www.pakistanlink.com/letters/2002/Nov/22/03.html

Even his brothers said he did it, find me one person other than you who thinks he didn’t.

The glass and gun could have been planted but it's odd if they were that neither he nor his roommate said anything about it. Do you think the local cops were in on it too?

Given who he worked for - see below - my faith in the testimony of his roommate isn't the greatest.

You lost me there just who did his roommate work for again? If you meant Kasi himself why would his roommate be suspect because he (Kasi) drove a delivery truck?

Planted evidence? Police in cahoots with the CIA? Unthinkable. Or may be that wasn't the case here (see final item).

It`s possible the evidence was planted but it existence makes your theory even less likely. But that evidence is superfluous since he bragged about doing it to anyone who`d listen.

You also ignored that he was IDed by witnesses, normally you put such a premium on eyewitness testimony.

Not too often you get a boat-load of eyewitnesses who openly admit to working for Langley.

That`s a really silly objection who do you expect people lining up to get into CIA HQ to work for? So what’s your theory, they intentionally misidentified the person who killed their coworkers and some cases injured and/or tried to kill them? It doesn’t really matter though he freely and repeatedly confessed.

I guess being shown to be wrong hurts leading you to resort to sarcasm. Almost all photos of Kansi show him to be light-skinned enough to pass as white especially by witnesses who got brief glimpses of him from inside their cars shortly after sun up as he was randomly shooting people (in their cars) with an automatic weapon.

All you've shown me, Len, is a photograph with what appears to be an unnatural light source on his face, a photograph whose provenance and handling would require a great deal more investigation than a thumbs-up from an habitual establishment shil.

He appears light skinned in all the images I could find of him on the Net, see if you can turn one up which shows him too dark to pass for white to a terrified witness who only got a brief glimpse of him through their window before crouching down in their car shortly after sunrise.

Edited by Len Colby
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And then there's the small matter of Kasi's job. Here's the aforementioned Rashid and Adams on that and other interesting bits and pieces:
"There is uncertainty on how he entered the United States. According to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, he applied for political asylum in 1991, claiming that he had entered the country through New York's Kennedy airport without being interviewed by immigation officials. In theory that is impossible; either Kansi [sic] came in some other way or he had high level help to avoid official screening. He also won a work permit without being interviewed by the INS, again breaking the rules."

Can we say "CIA"? I think we can. And just in case there's any doubt about this, we need only look at his employ at the time of the shooting. Rashid and Adams again:

I have no idea what they are going on about even now after 9/11 foreigners with visas normally aren’t interviewed, they just show their passport to someone who stamps it, at most they MIGHT be asked a few questions. Any non-US national who has vistited that country can confirm this. My wife was never interviewed, none of the Brazilians I know who`ve been to the US told me they were interviewed. I’ve come into US 2 – 3 times a year for the last 12 years or so, I never seen a foreigner taken off for an interview. As for his Green Card he said he bought it (see the Salon article).

Despite having a degree in English, he took a minor job as a courier - but with a company owned by Chris Marchetti, the son of Victor Marchetti, a legendary covert operator. It is the only courier company in the Washington area to deliver to the CIA headquarters.

A degree in English from Pakistan wow that must have open a lot of career opportunities! I have a friend with a masters in English from Yale who has a hard time finding employment and a doctor from Jamaica who works as a nurse`s aid and people with engineering degrees from the ex-USSR who drive cabs.

The part about him working for Marchetti`s son`s company and it being the only one with access sounds apocryphal to me because 1) his father didn`t exactly leave ‘the Company’ on good terms and 2) I haven`t heard this anywhere else 3) their other nonsense makes them less than credible, didn't they write that for the same publication which said Atta`s passport was found near the trade center? [EDIT - My error that was the Guardian not the Times]

So a man who presumably has access, but virtue of his job, to some interesting CIA locations, chooses to register his alleged protest by a harum-scarum random shooting at the entrance to a heavily guarded site when he could have pulled off something much more murderous much more easily in the course of a standard working day, and got away without a hot pursuit. Ho-hum. Yet another dog that doesn't hunt.

LOL that has more holes in it than a shot gunned chunk of Jarlsburg

1) Even IF they were correct about his employment we can`t assume he would have access to the CIA. Note that they didn‘t say he did. Presumably any drivers allowed inside would have to pass security clearance, something a recent immigrant from Pakistan would unlikely to be able to get.

2) You describe the entrance as “heavily guarded” which is probably true but there are no accounts or security trying to stop him or that he was pursued, it sounds like he was actually across the street from the entrance.

3) Obviously it would be much easier to get away from outside the CIA compound than inside it.

Another dumb theory that doesn’t make any sense.

To finish, Rashid and Adams again:
"The police have complained that the CIA has done the bare minimum to co-operate with the investigation, fuelling suspicions that the agency may know more about the case than it has admitted so far. 'Kansi appears to be CIA-trained because he planned this so well and so methodically,' said a senior police officer involved in the search...Quetta, where Kansi's family are prominent landowners, was a key forwarding post for the CIA shipments of $6 billion of arms to the mujaheddin during the Afghan war."

Pure speculation does someone have to be an agent to plan well? The funny thing is that you classified his attack as haphazard ("harum-scarum random"). All he did was park behind a row of cars stopped at a red light and shoot at the men inside them. He made no effort to conceal his identity. He used his own car. He went to McDonald’s after the shooting and stashed the murder weapon in his apt. He didn’t tell his roommate he was skipping town. He didn’t even buy his ticket to Pakistan till the day after the shootings. Oh yes his planning was superb! He must have been trained by pros! It sounds like Rashid and Adams made that up just like they made up the part about that he should have been interviewed by the INS. As for the Mujaheddin he freely admits to being part of them, it does prove a thing.

Do you have a link to this supposed article your only source of info? I couldn’t find it.

The Agency burns yet another Muslim asset? The only novelty was in the location for, and the elaborateness of, the fit-up.

Nope, nothing less mundane than a Pakistani guy who years earlier had fought with the Mujaheddin (or so he claimed) flipped out and/or got very pissed off about the US’s Middle East policy and decided to blow away some folks from the CIA.

Edited by Len Colby
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  • 4 weeks later...
Even his brothers said he did it...

They were eyewitnesses? Is there something you're not telling us, Len?

...find me one person other than you who thinks he didn’t.

Andy Boehm, "Late for work: The Mysterious Massacre at the CIA," Prevailing Winds, Premiere Issue, (undated, but circa 1993), pp.15-27.

Try p. 27 for a sceptical BATF agent:

"Which brings us back to David Fischer, the gun dealer who identified Kansi...Fischer had shown the BATF agent...federal and state gun purchase documents which Kansi had signed with his correct name. Yet Fischer says that the underwhelmed agent 'blew me away.' Why? Because, said the Post [Washington], Fischer claimed the agent wanted to find 'records that would show that Michael Murray, a Vienna man accused of painting anti-CIA graffitti on streets there, had purchased a gun.'"

NB:Boehm promised a follow-up piece in the next edition of Prevailing Winds, one designed to "wrap up 20 or 30 loose ends." If I have it, I'm damned if I can find it.

Glad to have assisted in your quest for another sceptic.

Paul

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Even his brothers said he did it...

They were eyewitnesses? Is there something you're not telling us, Len?

No but that wasn't one of my major points. You skipped the big one Kansi repeatedly confesed even to his family it seems

...find me one person other than you who thinks he didn’t.

Andy Boehm, "Late for work: The Mysterious Massacre at the CIA," Prevailing Winds, Premiere Issue, (undated, but circa 1993), pp.15-27.

Try p. 27 for a sceptical BATF agent:

"Which brings us back to David Fischer, the gun dealer who identified Kansi...Fischer had shown the BATF agent...federal and state gun purchase documents which Kansi had signed with his correct name. Yet Fischer says that the underwhelmed agent 'blew me away.' Why? Because, said the Post [Washington], Fischer claimed the agent wanted to find 'records that would show that Michael Murray, a Vienna man accused of painting anti-CIA graffitti on streets there, had purchased a gun.'"

NB:Boehm promised a follow-up piece in the next edition of Prevailing Winds, one designed to "wrap up 20 or 30 loose ends." If I have it, I'm damned if I can find it.

Glad to have assisted in your quest for another sceptic.

Paul

So some guy claimed that the gun dealer told him that some unnamed BATF agent was interested in someone else? What is that triple hearsay? Even if true it doesn't help you much since this apparently was shortly after the shootings years before Kansi admitted he'd done it. How much of the evidence against him was the agent aware of? It sounds like this was from the beginning of the investigation. Any indication of why the agent was more interested in Murray than Kansi?

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Any indication of why the agent was more interested in Murray than Kansi?

Murray was - still is? - white, Len:

“A 29-year-old Fairfax County man has been charged with spray painting words, including ‘CIA,’ ‘Crime,’ and ‘Police,’ in large letters on roadways surrounding Vienna and with possessing a concealed, loaded semi-automatic pistol.

Police said they are investigating whether Michael T. Murray had ‘any possible involvement in the Jan. 25 shootings outside the Langley headquarters…According to sources, there is no evidence that Murray is the gunman.

Murray, who has green eyes and sandy blond hair, does not match the description of the suspect as a white male with a dark complexion and dark brown or black medium-length hair…,”

Patricia Davis, “Graffiti suspect probed for possible links to CIA slayings,” Washington Post, 4 February 1993, p.B1.

Paul

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Any indication of why the agent was more interested in Murray than Kansi?

Murray was - still is? - white, Len:

“A 29-year-old Fairfax County man has been charged with spray painting words, including ‘CIA,’ ‘Crime,’ and ‘Police,’ in large letters on roadways surrounding Vienna and with possessing a concealed, loaded semi-automatic pistol.

Police said they are investigating whether Michael T. Murray had ‘any possible involvement in the Jan. 25 shootings outside the Langley headquarters…According to sources, there is no evidence that Murray is the gunman.

Murray, who has green eyes and sandy blond hair, does not match the description of the suspect as a white male with a dark complexion and dark brown or black medium-length hair…,”

Patricia Davis, “Graffiti suspect probed for possible links to CIA slayings,” Washington Post, 4 February 1993, p.B1.

Paul

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Any indication of why the agent was more interested in Murray than Kansi?

Murray was - still is? - white, Len:

“A 29-year-old Fairfax County man has been charged with spray painting words, including ‘CIA,’ ‘Crime,’ and ‘Police,’ in large letters on roadways surrounding Vienna and with possessing a concealed, loaded semi-automatic pistol.

Police said they are investigating whether Michael T. Murray had ‘any possible involvement in the Jan. 25 shootings outside the Langley headquarters…According to sources, there is no evidence that Murray is the gunman.

Murray, who has green eyes and sandy blond hair, does not match the description of the suspect as a white male with a dark complexion and dark brown or black medium-length hair…,”

Patricia Davis, “Graffiti suspect probed for possible links to CIA slayings,” Washington Post, 4 February 1993, p.B1.

Paul

-"Murray, who has green eyes and sandy blond hair, does not match the description of the suspect as a white male with a dark complexion and dark brown or black medium-length hair…,”

-"According to sources, there is no evidence that Murray is the gunman"

- Murray never confessed to the crime

-None of his relatives said he did

- The murder weapon and bloody clothes weren't found in his house.

- The gun store owner didn't ID him as the person who bought it

He was arrested in Europe 10 days later, was he in the D.C. on January 25?

Did he suddenly and unexpectedly leave the country?

If he was a fugitive why would he have drawn attention to himself like that?

Is there any reason to suspect him other than the fact he scrawled anti-CIA graffiti several days later in another continent

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Is there any reason to suspect him other than the fact he scrawled anti-CIA graffiti several days later in another continent

He had "previous":

"Other records show he was convicted three years ago of illegally discharging a firearm and fined $500,"

Patricia Davis, "Graffiti suspect probed for possible links to CIA slayings," Washington Post, 4 Feb 1993, p.B1.

Kansi had no such form, either with regard to a psychotic hatred of the CIA, or with illegally discharging weapons. Moreover, the white guy much more closely resembled one of the fuller eyewitness descriptions early offered the reading public:

“Jo Anne Burka first thought the slender, curly haired man standing between two lines of stopped cars at a traffic light was a panhandler,”

D’Vera Cohn, “It wasn’t like on TV. He was just casually walking up, shooting into cars,” Washington Post, 26 January 1993, p.A1.

Paul

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Is there any reason to suspect him other than the fact he scrawled anti-CIA graffiti several days later in another continent

He had "previous":

"Other records show he was convicted three years ago of illegally discharging a firearm and fined $500,"

Patricia Davis, "Graffiti suspect probed for possible links to CIA slayings," Washington Post, 4 Feb 1993, p.B1.

Kansi had no such form, either with regard to a psychotic hatred of the CIA,

"psychotic hatred" all he did was scrawl graffiti

or with illegally discharging weapons.

This is a piddling charge (note his only punishment was a small fine) which entails things like shooting in the air or at dogs etc a very far cry from gunning people down in cold blood in front of witnesses.

Moreover, the white guy much more closely resembled one of the fuller eyewitness descriptions early offered the reading public:

Unless you can produce a photo of the guy ypu have no basis for that statement some witnesses descibed the shooter as "swarthy". Your own source said he DIDN'T resemble the shooter.

OK you can claim the gun, blood traces and glass shards were planted and suggest (without any evidence) that Kansi's roommate was CIA. But have yet to explain Kansi's

- repeated confessions (even to his family apparently)

- identification by the gun store owner

- last minute decision to depart from the US the day after the shooting

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But have yet to explain Kansi's

- repeated confessions (even to his family apparently)

Ah, yes, that ultra-close family:

“Friends and relatives say that Kansi is not particularly close to his family. He was the only child of his father’s second wife…who died in 1984. He has six half sisters and three half brothers by his father’s first wife…,”

John Ward Anderson, “CIA suspect’s divided personality,” Washington Post, 17 February 1993, p.A1.

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