1993 World Trade Center Bombing
Days after the bombing of the World Trade Center, Elizabeth Williams covered the late-night arraignment of Mohammed A. Salameh, in Manhattan Federal Court on March 4, 1993. Seated between his translator Latif Onsi and defense lawyer Robert Precht, Salameh is a Palestinian who had overstayed a tourist visa and the first suspect to be charged with the detonation of explosives in a rented van in the World Trade Center parking garage. A fragment of the vehicle linked Salameh to its rental. The bomb killed five people and injured more than 1,000 others. On May 24, 1994, in the trial United States v. Salameh et al., Salameh, along with three other defendants, received a 240-year sentence: appeal at 152 F.3d 88 (1998).