Jon Levine writes for the Washington Free Beacon about one group with a special interest in a New Jersey congressional election.
Victims and survivors of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing reacted with shock and horror at the possibility—if not likelihood—that a close associate of the “Blind Sheikh” terrorist mastermind who inspired the attack may soon be a member of Congress.
Adam Hamawy, a Princeton plastic surgeon, is a frontrunner in a crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D.) in New Jersey’s deep-blue 12th Congressional District—despite his years-long friendship with Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Muslim extremist cleric who was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1993 bombing.
The February 1993 blast killed 6 people and wounded more than 1,000. Rahman, better known as “the Blind Sheikh,” went on trial in 1995 for his role in the attack. Hamawy was a defense witness in the spectacular trial and described the terrorist as a “leader of the community” on the campaign trail just last week.
He also claimed he never heard Rahman discuss terrorism or violence, even though he took a 13-hour road trip in 1991 with the Blind Sheikh to a Detroit conference called “Toward a Global Islamic Economy in Detroit,” which featured multiple extremist speakers talking about jihad and infidels.
“I would never vote for Hamawy because of this and again, saying that as a lifelong Democrat and someone who really wants to keep New Jersey blue, I would find another Democrat to vote for even if it meant writing in someone. I could not with a clear conscience ever vote for this man. Nor would I encourage anybody else to. Some things are just not forgivable,” Michael Macko, a retired fashion consultant who lives in Morristown, told the Washington Free Beacon.
