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WASHINGTON, Nov 14: The US Supreme Court on Thursday refused to block the execution of Mir Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani citizen convicted of killing two CIA employees outside the agency headquarters in 1993.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg had earlier indicated they would have granted a stay.
Kasi was scheduled to be executed in Virginia at 9pm ET in Jarratt, Virginia.
The Supreme Court has twice before refused requests to review Kasi’s case.
This time, his lawyers are asking the court to temporarily block his case to consider whether he was removed improperly from Pakistan after his killing spree. An FBI team apprehended him in Pakistan in 1997 with Pakistani help, though Islamabad has never publicly acknowledged its role in Kasi’s capture.
His relatives say a powerful local family tipped US officials off in exchange for $2 million. US and Pakistani officials have refused to comment on the claims and the family denies involvement.
Kasi’s lawyers want the Supreme Court to examine whether documents kept by federal officials should have been turned over to state officials.
After his capture by the FBI, Kasi was taken back to the United States and tried in a state court in the Virginia suburbs of Washington.
SUPREME COURT: The Supreme Court Thursday was considering the latest death stay request from Mir Aimal Kasi.
Prosecutors said Kasi, a Pakistani worker in Fairfax County, Va., was upset at US policies abroad, particularly their effect on Islamic countries, when he went on his killing spree.
Kasi fled to Pakistan and hid out in southern Afghanistan for years. After a worldwide manhunt, Kasi was lured to a hotel in a Pakistani border city, where the FBI team pounced.
Kasi’s emergency request at the Supreme Court was not the only effort to save his life launched in recent days.
Pakistan has asked Virginia Gov. Mark Warner to commute Mir Aimal Kasi’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
