Karim_height

Physical Description of Ramzi Yousef / Abdul Basit Karim

A key element in any physical description is height, which typically changes rather little after the
teen years and which cannot be disguised. It is striking, then, that for both of the terrorist
masterminds, there are strikingly inconsistent accounts of their height.

This is most obvious in the case of Ramzi Yousef. The immigration document filed on his entry into
the U.S. in September 1992, at the age of twenty-four, records his height as six feet (6'0"). The
information provided in his Iraq passport, issued two years earlier, is 1 meter 75 centimeters
(around 5'8"). This is a difference of four inches, which would appear to call for some investigation.

Other available information is consistent with the Iraqi passport. The photocopy of a Pakistani
passport issued to Abdul Basit Karim in 1988 gives a height of 170 centimeters (5'7"). Moreover,
Karim's teachers at Swansea Institute (1987-89) estimated his height at no more than 5'8" -- they
recalled looking down at him rather than up.

If the official identification is correct, and Ramzi Yousef really is Abdul Basit Karim, his teachers as
well as the Pakistani passport must be in error. In the two and a half years between the time the
twenty-one-year-old Karim finished his program at Swansea and the time Yousef entered the U.S.,
he shot up by four inches. It is highly unlikely for someone to grow four inches, past the
age of twenty.

At the time of Ramzi Yousef's trial, it was clear that the government lacked the evidence to make a
definitive identification of the defendant. Judge Duffy stated, at sentencing, "We don't even know
what your name is." (A Justice Department official said privately, "It doesn't matter what we call
him, we just try a body."

In the context of the broader investigation into the series of terrorist attacks, however,
it does matter who the perpetrators are and how they are linked, and where they find
their support, training, and direction.