World Trade Center Bombing: 1993-94 & 1997 - Final Sentences

On November 12, 1997, Yousef and Ismoil were convicted on all the charges against them, including the lethal use of explosives, which carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole. On January 8, 1998, Yousef was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for participating in the World Trade Center bombing, the airline conspiracy, and causing the death of the Japanese passenger in the latter plot's "test run." Murad received a life sentence and was fined $250,000 so that he could not profit from the case. Shah began cooperating with authorities and was rumored to provide information about Saudi militant Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. authorities accused of being the mastermind behind explosions at two American embassies in Africa on August 7, 1998. Ismoil received a 240-year sentence calculated by the same formula Judge Duffy used in the first bombing trial, plus heavy fines that ensured Ismoil would never profit financially from telling his story.

The World Trade Center trials resulted in the prosecution of all but one of the accused participants, Abdul Rahman Yasin, whom federal authorities had detained but carelessly released after the blast. Yasin was thought to have escaped to Iraq. Despite the trials and convictions, the mystery of who financed the attack, however, still remains.