Sentences cut for four in 1993 WTC bombing
NEW YORK — Decades after going to prison, some of the men responsible for the World Trade Center bombing that killed six people 28 years ago Friday are still trying to whittle down their onetime life sentences on the remote chance that they could someday be freed.
And they are having some success.
In the last year, four men implicated in the 1993 bombing have won reductions to their sentences after one part of their convictions was dropped to be consistent with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Once each sentenced to 240 years in prison, appeals have won them sentence deductions as they continue efforts to get judges to take fresh looks at their cases.
While unlikely, all four could be freed if they live long enough. Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj, 55, could be freed when he is 96 after 30 years were shaved off his sentence last month. Nidal Ayyad, 53, Mohammad A. Salameh, 53, and Mahmud Abouhalima, 61, could be freed if they each live to be 100.
All received sentence reductions in the last year. All would face deportation.
Historically, incarceration has not been recommended for longevity. Ajaj noted in a court filing last year that he has chronic health problems after facing cancer, the removal of his left lung and a severe spinal disorder.
Friends and relatives of the six bombing victims participated Friday in a pair of events to mark the anniversary of the terrorist attack, in which 1,200 pounds of explosives in a van detonated in a garage beneath the twin towers. It left a crater half the size of a football field.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey held a virtual Mass at the St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan, honoring the four employees it lost in the attack: Robert Kirkpatrick, 61, Stephen Knapp, 48, Bill Macko, 47, and Monica Smith, who was 35 and pregnant when she died.
Also killed were John DiGiovanni, 45, who had parked in the garage, and Wilfredo Mercado, 37, who worked for the Windows on the World Restaurant.
Because of the pandemic, the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum held a hybrid memorial, with some relatives and survivors gathering at the 9/11 Memorial for a private midday ceremony and about 60 others watching a Zoom feed. Flowers and small flags affixed with photos of the victims were placed next to their names on a plaque overlooking on of the site’s two reflecting pools.
The names of the victims were read, a bell tolled at the time of the attack — 12:17 p.m. — and a pipe and drum band performed “Amazing Grace.” Some of the people watching the stream wiped away tears or placed a hand to their face as the ceremony concluded.