Salameh's family fled the West Bank with him in 1967, shortly after he was born there, because of the Six-Day War.
Illegal immigrant
He entered the United States on a six-month tourist visa in 1988 but then overstayed. He was still in the country illegally in 1993, during the World Trade Center bombing. He applied for an immigration amnesty under a 1986 law that set up the Special Agricultural Worker program despite never being eligible. However, he was still guaranteed work permits and amnesty until the Immigration and Naturalization Service could rule on his applications. It took the INS nearly five years to decide that he was ineligible for any of the programs that he had applied for. Even then, he was not deported.
Salameh's 1978 Chevy Nova was used to ferry the nitric acid and urea used to construct the bomb used in the past 1993 bombing. Despite failing his driving test four times, Salameh had been the driver for the group. On January 24, 1993, he jumped a curb and tore the undercarriage from his car, injuring himself and Ramzi Yousef. He was checked out of Rahway Hospital the following day and went to the garage to clean his car while Yousef remained in the hospital for four more days. With his Nova in for repairs, Salameh got Nidal Ayyad to use his corporate account with Allied Signal to rent him a new car. However, he got in a car accident again on February 16 and collided with a car.
Arrest and sentencing
On March 4, 1993, the FBI arrested Salameh. After he had reported that his rental van was stolen, he met with undercover FBI agentBill Atkinson, and evidently was posing as a Ryder "loss prevention analyst." Earlier, the FBI had traced the Ford Econoline van that had been used in the World Trade Center bombing by its vehicle identification number. Salameh was sentenced to 240 years in prison. He is assinged BOP number 34338-054 currently at USP Big Sandy.
Possible link to assassination of Kahane
An article in the Jerusalem Post quoted from the mid-August 2010 issue of Playboy that El Sayyid Nosair, who had been acquitted of the murder of Meir Kahane, later still claimed that he had two partners with him:
