WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Funeral prayers for Mir Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani citizen executed for the 1993 killing of two CIA employees, were said in Richmond, Va., after the traditional Friday prayers of Muslims.
Kasi, 38, was executed Thursday night amid warnings by the State Department of global retaliation against Americans. He died by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center.
His body was then taken to the state medical examiner's office in Richmond, and after an autopsy was turned over to Kasi's brothers.
Several hundred Pakistanis and local Muslims participated in his funeral prayers Friday at the Richmond Islamic Center, about 100 miles south of Washington.
His body was to be flown to Lahore on a Pakistan International Airlines flight that leaves New York's JFK airport at 9 p.m. EST From Lahore, the body will be taken to Karachi and then to his hometown of Quetta, his family sources said.
Kasi's two brothers, who traveled from Pakistan to be with him during his last hours, were to travel with the body, the sources said. He will be buried in his ancestral graveyard in Quetta. Thousands of people have gathered at Kasi's home to mourn his death with family members and the town has been a scene of violent protest against the execution since Tuesday.
In Pakistan, hundreds of religious students demonstrated against the execution, calling the United States the biggest terrorist of all and warning Americans that they would not be safe if Kasi died. On Friday, two people were killed in an explosion in the southern city of Hyderabad, which could have been a reaction to Kasi's execution, Pakistani authorities said.
The State Department, wary of possible reprisals, ordered four U.S. diplomatic missions in Pakistan to close as a precaution. The State Department urged Americans in Pakistan to "exercise maximum caution and take prudent measures."
Kasi spent his last day in a cell only a few feet from Virginia's death chamber, meeting two of his brothers, his attorneys and his spiritual adviser, a local imam.
Kasi had been fasting since Nov. 6, when the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began. For his last Iftaar (the meal after breaking the fast), he requested pilaf, bananas, boiled eggs and naan. Then he spoke with his mother in Quetta by telephone.
In a recent interview, Kasi had opposed any retaliation for his execution, but also said he felt he was justified in his attack.
"I don't encourage people to attack anybody," Kasi said in a telephone conversation from prison. "I feel sorry and sad for the families of the victims. I don't say that I feel happy or proud for it."
Kasi said the killings were an attack on the U.S. government, not individuals, for its policies in the Middle East. The attack "showed U.S. government that officials can get hurt in the United States also," he said.
Kasi entered the death chamber at 8:58 p.m., reciting the kalima or the Islamic declaration of faith: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet." Before succumbing to the lethal injection, he raised his middle finger -- mistaken by some of the witnesses as a victory sign. However, in Islam raising the middle finger is a way of silently proclaiming that "there's only one God."
Witnesses said it was a very peaceful gesture and there was no sign of agitation in it.
"But he definitely appeared sad," said Guy Taylor of The Washington Times, who witnessed the execution.
"He appeared nervous, and his breathing was labored when he entered the death chamber," Traylor, said but other witnesses said he was calm and showed no sign of nervousness.
Because of security threats, guards with assault rifles guarded the half-mile path to the prison, and three Virginia state troopers also stayed with Kasi in the room. All journalists covering the event were searched and asked to provide identification. Besides the four journalists allowed inside the chamber, about 100 other reporters and 15 satellite trucks waited outside the prison for the news of the execution.
A small group of protesters also observed an hourlong vigil, holding candles. Most of them represented groups opposing death penalty. "Life is sacred, don't kill," said a placard held by death penalty opponent Virginia Rovnyak.
Earlier Thursday, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner denied Kasi's clemency request, saying he had admitted his crimes but shown no remorse for his actions.
"After a thorough review of Mr. Kasi's petition for clemency and the judicial opinions regarding this case, I have concluded that the death penalty is appropriate in this instance. I will not intervene," Warner said in a statement.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday denied an appeal by Kasi. Kasi's lawyers had mounted a last-minute legal challenge, but by an apparent 7-2 vote, the court denied it. Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Ginsburg said they would have granted the stay to consider legal issues raised by Kasi's lawyers.
Prosecutors said Kasi, a courier-agency employee in Fairfax County, Virginia, was upset at U.S. policies abroad, particularly their effect on Islamic countries, when he went on his killing spree.
Kasi was convicted of killing CIA communications worker Frank Darling, 28, and CIA analyst and physician Lansing Bennett, 66, as they sat in their cars at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Three other men were wounded as Kasi walked along the row of stopped cars, shooting into them with an AK-47 assault rifle.
He fled the United States and spent most of the next four years hiding in and around the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. He was caught in a restaurant -- Shalimar -- in D.G. Khan in 1997. His relatives blamed a local influential family for trapping Kasi and said the family received $2 million from U.S. authorities as reward. The family denies the charge.
