Ramzi Yousef is serving life with no parole plus 240 years for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and he’s spent the last fifteen years in solitary confinement at a prison in the Colorado Rockies. Now Yousef is suing to be moved to “a unit in an open prison environment where inmates are allowed outside their cells for no less than 14 hours a day,” according to a letter he wrote to the warden, which was obtained by the L.A. Times. Yousef’s attorney says the lack of human contact has already taken a psychological toll, but officials say he’s still a threat. Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy noted that during his trial Yousef, who is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s nephew, “was collecting urea in his cell, a main ingredient in the WTC bomb,” as well as a certain type of watch that was used as the timer in bombs meant for airplanes.
