NEW YORK, Nov. 12 -- A Manhattan jury has found Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil guilty of plotting and carrying out the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000. After a trial of more than three months and three days of deliberations, the jury found the pair guilty on all 10 counts involving conspiracy and related charges involving explosives. Neither showed any expression when the verdicts were translated to them, but relatives in court burst into sobs. Yousef was considered the mastermind behind the plot. Prosecutors said he bought the chemicals for the potent brew that was detonated in an underground garage in the North Tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Ismoil was the driver who took the rented yellow van in the basement garage where plotters hoped the blast would cause the tower to topple onto its twin. During the trial, prosecutors said Yousef was motivated by hatred for the United States and Israel and hoped to change U.S. policy toward Israel. Yousef is already serving a life term for plotting to blow up American commercial planes over the Pacific Ocean. Yousef's attorney Roy Kulcsar said the government's key evidence was a statement Yousef made as he was being brought to the United States by federal agents. The statement was not recorded but reconstructed by agents, and Kulcsar said he'd tried to make the jury believe it was not credible. But he said, with the other evidence, the government made the case against his client 'cohesive.'
Flanked by New York FBI director James Kallstrom and New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White called Yousef's statement 'a brazen, bold statement of a terrorist.' She says the investigation 'will never be over until we track down every single person' who played a part. One suspect, Abdul Rahman Yasin, is still a fugitive. Sentencing for Yousef has been set for Jan. 8 and for Ismoil, Feb. 12. Kulcsar says they will appeal. ---
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