Word: mahmud
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...proceedings are the first of at least two trials in which 22 Islamic fundamentalists -- including Mahmud's younger brother Mohammed -- will be tried for taking part in a massive plot to undermine the U.S. government. The catalog of charges, according to New York University law scholar Stephen Gillers, amounts to "the gravest allegations to come out of any American court in this century." Among the accusations: bombing the Trade Center, murdering the militant Zionist Rabbi Meir Kahane, plotting to kill Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato, and scheming to blow up two major highway tunnels...
...Mahmoud Abdel Shafi, an Egyptian lawyer who represents Islamic militants, remembers that Abouhalima occasionally came to him in 1980, at age 20, to get help for friends who had been arrested. "There was a crackdown on Muslim youths who were trying to remain steadfast in their faith," says Shafi. "Mahmud was not planting bombs. He was concerned about what was happening. He simply took it upon himself to try to help those who were in prison...
Soika was happy to help Abouhalima stay in Munich. In return, she got a provider who was tall, courteous and confident. It wasn't love exactly, but Mahmud's traditional values appealed to Soika. He prayed five times a day and avoided alcohol. He brought her flowers on her birthday. And he insisted that she quit her job and devote her time to cooking and caring for the home. "He was always polite and friendly," recalls Soika. "He was never violent, never aggressive...
...invited several Muslim friends who needed housing to live temporarily with him and his wife. Abouhalima conducted many smoky gatherings in their home, where groups of Egyptians would sit and discuss politics in Arabic, which Soika did not understand. Soika says she was left with the impression that Mahmud worked in some kind of "underground," but she couldn't put her finger on it. "He never said anything about it directly," she says. "But I could well imagine...
Last year Abouhalima's mother-in-law spent two weeks with the couple, who had by then moved to Newark. Mahmud made every effort to improve the relationship. "He tried to please," Hildegard Weber recalls. "But they wouldn't show me their friends. They knew I was distrustful...