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| Wali Khan Amin Shah | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1967 (age 57–58) |
| Detained at | FCI Pekin[1] |
| Other name(s) | Osama Turkestani Osama Azmurai Grabi Ibrahim Hahse |
Wali Khan Amin Shah (Arabic:والي خان أمين شاه) (also known asOsama Turkestani,Osama Azmurai,[2] andGrabi Ibrahim Hahsen[citation needed]) is a Saudi man who fought with theAfghan Arabs inAfghanistan, and called for the jihad movement to focus on attacking the United States. He had a role in the foiledBojinka plot. He was convicted ofterrorism and imprisoned on these charges from 1995 to 2021.
Shah was born inTurkestan (nowUzbekistan), having fled with his family to escape theSoviet invasion and settled inSaudi Arabia where he was astateless person. Shah says he was sent by the Saudi government to fight in Afghanistan andPakistan.[3]
Shah bombed the Greenbelt Theatre in Manila on December 1, injuring several people. In January 1995, Shah traveled from Pakistan to Manila viaKuala Lumpur andSingapore to rendezvous withRamzi Yousef.[4]
The Bojinka plot was discovered by police on January 6, 1995. He was arrested byManila police at an apartment on Singalong Street, which Yousef had set up in case the plot failed,[5] on January 11, but he escaped police custody roughly 77 hours later. After obtaining a fraudulent passport bearing the nameOsama Turkestani, he lived on the nearby island ofLangkawi until his December 1995 re-arrest in Malaysia. After the re-arrest, he was handed over toUnited States authorities.
Khan's capture was initially a closely guarded secret, butABC News correspondent John Miller revealed the news of his arrest during a 1998 interview withOsama bin Laden at anal-Qaeda training camp inAfghanistan.FBI Special AgentJohn P. O'Neill was initially suspected of leaking the information to his friend Christopher Isham and was nearly indicted by Assistant U.S. AttorneyPatrick Fitzgerald, but ABC denied that O'Neill was the source of the information.[6]
Shah was reported to have made an unsuccessful escape attempt from theMetropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.[7]
Shah was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison having spent his first 14 years insolitary confinement under very severe conditions due toSpecial Administrative Measures (SAMs) inADX Florence, and was later transferred to the Communication Management Unit (CMU) a little less severe inMarion,Illinois.[3]
Shah cooperated with theUnited States Government since August 1998.[citation needed] Shah,Federal Bureau of Prisons # 42799-054, previously incarcerated atMarion USP, was held atFCI Terre Haute. He was released on September 3, 2021.[1] Since he is a stateless person, Shah will likely remain detained throughout lengthy deportation proceedings, although after six months of detention, the burden shifts to the US government to prove that his removal is possible in the reasonably foreseeable future.[8]