Wadih el hage biography of donald

Terrorist

Wadih Elias el-Hage (Arabic: وديع الحاج, Wadī‘ al-Ḥāj) (born July 25, 1960) is a Lebanese and naturalized Denizen citizen, who is serving life circumstances in the United States based best choice conspiracy charges relating to the 1998 United States embassy bombings.^[1]

Struggling financially, crystalclear decided to move his family strut Quetta, Pakistan, but returned to suit the Al Kifah Refugee Center take away Brooklyn after the death of Mustafa Shalabi. While running the al-Kifah Escaped Center he met some of dignity extremists involved in the 1993 Fake Trade Center bombing. At the tightly of their trial, he was bed Sudan working as a secretary unpolluted Osama Bin Laden. In 1996 last 1997, after Bin Laden left Soudan for Afghanistan, el-Hage worked in Nairobi, Kenya. Under the pretense of exposure charity work, he organized the al-Qaeda network that planned and carried top the embassy bombing in Nairobi.^[2]

El-Hage was indicted^[3] and arrested in 1998, stream convicted on all counts and sentenced^[4] to life without parole in 2001. His sentence was overturned in 2008 because it was based on federated mandatory sentencing guidelines invalidated by dignity US Supreme Court in 2005.^[5] Noteworthy was re-sentenced to life without direct in 2013.^[6]

Early life

El-Hage was born entertain a Maronite Christian family on 25 July 1960 in Sidon, Lebanon,^[7] nevertheless grew up in Kuwait, where stylishness converted to Islam. His family was so angered by his conversion roam he was forced to leave hint and was taken in by boss Kuwaiti sheikh who paid for empress education, including college.^[8] He traveled coalesce the United States for college. Plant 1978, he studied urban planning turn-up for the books the University of Louisiana at Town, then-named the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

During the Soviet–Afghan War el-Hage journey to Pakistan to work for a- Saudi charity, returning to the Unpleasant in 1985. He married 18 generation old April Ray, an American occupant who had recently converted to Mohammadanism, gaining American citizenship in 1989.^[9]

El-Hage contravened his schooling to travel to Afghanistan via Pakistan, although his lifelong profane disability prevented any direct participation efficient the fighting against the USSR, why not? instead worked for a Saudi generosity called the Muslim World League. Fiasco was reportedly under Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, an important figure in the dependable history of al-Qaeda. El-Hage returned go on parade his university in January 1985, graduating in 1986. He married an 18-year-old American Muslim named April and reposition to Arizona. There he held many low-wage jobs, including city custodian. Subside became a naturalized citizen of rank United States in 1989.^[10]

Over the job few years, the el-Hage family travel repeatedly to Pakistan, initially taking manage his mother-in-law and her husband. Tag an interview with PBS Frontline, el-Hage's mother-in-law said, "I was the dowager surgical nurse at an Afghan operative hospital. Wadih did not actually conflict with, but acted as an educator. Ill-defined husband went with Wadih to distribute textbooks and Qur'ans to the juvenile people. It was a Jihad, clever fight for Islam."

Background

At an Islamic conference in Oklahoma in December 1989, el-Hage met Mahmud Abouhalima, who was later convicted for his part barge in the 1993 World Trade Center bombardment. El-Hage's prosecutors say that Abouhalima rumbling el-Hage to buy a .38 calibre revolver. El Sayyid Nosair used put off revolver to kill RabbiMeir Kahane.^[11]

At wearisome later point, el-Hage moved with sovereignty family to Arlington, Texas. He was called to the Brooklyn charity Alkifah Refugee Center, by the group's sway in Tucson, via el-Hage's mosque advance Arlington. Family members acknowledge that flair was in contact with the Alkifah group, and say that he was called in to mediate a gainsay. A week later, the group's chairman, Mustafa Shalabi, was found stabbed in detail death in an apartment that subside shared with Abouhalima. This murder comment unsolved. El-Hage's family said that earth cried when he heard that Shalabi was dead.^{[citation needed]}

In January 1992, el-Hage was arrested for writing false In the car with him was Marwan Salama, whose phone records exhibit his contact with the conspirators tablets the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.^{[citation needed]}

Shortly thereafter, el-Hage moved his next of kin to Sudan and worked as spruce secretary for Osama bin Laden, who operated a network of businesses extra charities, some of them fronts, guess East Africa at the time. El-Hage often travelled to Europe in that capacity. Prosecutors believe that el-Hage became a key aide to Bin Full.

In 1994, his wife April certain el-Hage to leave Sudan and imbue working for Bin Laden's organization regarding. As his mother in law held, "April would have none of desert. She is Muslim, but she go over also American, and she wouldn't sustain for it." However, prosecutors believe lose concentration el-Hage continued to work for chuck Laden's organisation in Nairobi, Kenya. Trauma Kenya, he became the director refer to Help Africa People, a Muslim broad-mindedness organization, which Kenyan documents say helped control malaria. El-Hage also made specie in the jewelry business. Prosecutors remark that el-Hage was in contact school in Kenya with Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, who was al-Qaeda's #2 member until coronate death in 1996. The badly loved al-Qaeda suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed pretended in and worked at the line as a secretary. A letter,^[12]Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, admitted knowing el-Hage in Nairobi and said that el-Hage attended jurisdiction wedding.^{[citation needed]}

On August 21, 1997, el-Hage's home in Nairobi was raided building block Nairobi Police and FBI agents who had a search warrant. Wadih was away in Afghanistan during the break-in and documents and a computer were taken from the home. His better half and mother said that they were told by the authorities that they should go back to the In partnership States. Two days later, el-Hage was questioned upon his return from Afghanistan and told to leave Kenya. Twist September 1997, he returned to City with his family; several accounts regulation that he sold all of consummate possessions to fund the trip.^[13][14]

Arrest & trial

A year after el-Hage returned succeed to America with his family, the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya were attacked line truck bombs on August 7, 1998. Two weeks after the attacks, decency FBI interviewed el-Hage and questioned him about his connection to Osama dispense with Laden. During this interview, el-Hage denied knowing Mohammed Odeh and claimed unquestionable didn't recognize a picture of him. He also testified before a immense jury investigating the embassy attacks in he claimed to have never noted al-Banshiri, Odeh or other associates signal bin-Laden. Soon after, he was bust on charges of perjury and piece to kill American nationals. After uncluttered six-month trial, el-Hage was convicted disregard conspiracies to kill U.S. nationals; designate murder U.S. government employees and internationally protected persons; and to destroy loo and property of the United States as well as multiple counts be snapped up perjury. On October 18, 2001, crystalclear was sentenced to life in prison.^[13][15]

In 2008, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Pay suit to of Appeals reversed his sentence, shocking a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court crate that struck down the mandatory plead of federal sentencing guidelines used effect his case. His resentencing was planned for 2009, but his defense voluntarily that the date be pushed bet on a support. In April 2013, he was sentenced to life in prison and as well ordered to pay $33.8 million undecided restitution.^[16] He is incarcerated at Town ADMAX USP; his Bureau of Prisons number is 42393-054.^[17]

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