House Dem frontrunner's connections to ‘Blind Sheikh’ terrorist trial resurface and draw GOP fire
A trauma surgeon seen as the current frontrunner to succeed a retiring House Democrat was an acquaintance of and defense witness for the Egyptian-born cleric and convicted terrorist known as...
By Fox News · Fox News
A trauma surgeon seen as the current frontrunner to succeed a retiring House Democrat was an acquaintance of and defense witness for the Egyptian-born cleric and convicted terrorist known as the "Blind Sheikh" in the seditious conspiracy trial that put the latter away for life. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman was one of several people convicted of seditious conspiracy in the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing . Abdel-Rahman later died in prison at the federal detention center in Butner, North Carolina, in 2017. Dr. Adam Hisham Hamawy, now a plastic surgeon who runs his own "regenerative medicine" practice near Princeton, was one of the witnesses for the defense in Abdel-Rahman’s case and now faces questions about his judgment and past association with the sheikh, which his campaign told Fox News Digital amount to "guilt-by-association" shaming. Hamawy is running to replace Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman , D-N.J., in a crowded primary for the blue-favored district spanning Trenton through Somerville to the Plainfields that has not elected a Republican since 1994. DEM FREE-FOR-ALL ENGULFS NJ AS 13 CONTENDERS SCRAMBLE FOR SHERRILL’S HOUSE SEAT AHEAD OF CRITICAL 2026 FIGHT Hamawy and Abdel-Rahman first met at a middle school forum in Matawan, New Jersey , in 1991, according to the former’s testimony in court, as he began accompanying the Blind Sheikh to mosques and even took a 13-hour road trip with him and others, including future FBI informant Emad Salem, from the cleric’s home mosque in Jersey City to an Islamic conference in Michigan. In his testimony, Hamawy recounted being in a Michigan hotel room with Abdel-Rahman and Salem, where the latter was saying he was "bragging about his abilities" in bombmaking from his time in the Egyptian special forces. Abdel-Rahman regularly verbalized envisioning the assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and spoke of jihad, according to court documents. Abdel-Rahman’s mosque was also where several 1993 World Trade Ce…