New Jersey Dem Congressional Candidate Testified on Behalf of Terror Mastermind ‘Blind Sheikh’

Adam Hamawy, running in the Democratic primary to represent New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District with Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) endorsement, was a 26-year-old medical student when Abdel-Rahman’s lawyers put him on the stand to deny charges that the Blind Sheikh—whose followers carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—had called for the murder of then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The New York Times reported on Hamawy’s participation in the trial at the time, but dozens of pages of testimony reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon reveal a yearslong relationship between the congressional candidate and the jihadist leader. Front Page Magazine first reported on their connection.

Hamawy and Abdel-Rahman met in 1991 when the Islamist firebrand delivered a lecture at Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School in Cliffwood, N.J. From there, the Egyptian-born Hamawy said, he followed the Blind Sheikh to speaking events at mosques, visited the cleric in his home, and provided him with translation help.

During his testimony, which Hamawy began with a traditional “salam alaykum” greeting to the Blind Sheikh, he described taking a 13-hour car journey with Abdel-Rahman and some of his associates to a conference in Detroit called “Towards a Global Islamic Economy.” Those associates were Sheikh Abdel Khalid “from the Salam Mosque” in Jersey City, referred to in the court records as a “jihad office.” That mosque, where Abdel-Rahman preached, was the location where the conspirators behind the World Trade Center bombing would meet.

Also in the car was Emad Salem, an FBI informant and central prosecution witness who would help put the Blind Sheikh behind bars. According to court documents, Abdel-Rahman told Salem he should turn his “rifle’s barrel to President Mubarak’s chest, and kill him.” Hamawy, who told prosecutors he shared a hotel room with Abdel-Rahman at the conference, denied that he had heard the Blind Sheikh say anything to that effect.