NJ-12: 12th District Democrats trade barbs over candidate's ties to the 'blind sheikh'

A Democrat running in a crowded House primary is defending his past connection to the late Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind cleric who was convicted in 1995 of planning a bombing campaign intended to destroy the United Nations and other New York City landmarks.

Physician Adam Hamawy, one of 12 Democrats vying for their party’s nod in the 12th Congressional District on June 2, testified for the defense at Abdel Rahman’s trial, leading one of Hamawy’s rivals, Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, to call Hamawy a “radical extremist.”...

Hamawy brushed off his connection to Abdel Rahman as minimal and decades-old news. He said he was young when he first encountered the blind cleric in 1991, and remembers carpooling with him and others on one occasion. Hamawy said he testified at the man’s trial out of a sense of “a civic duty.”.....

Abdel Rahman built a following with anti-American sermons in Brooklyn and Jersey City. He was not convicted on charges stemming directly from the World Trade Center bombing, but prosecutors said he and his codefendants were coconspirators of the men convicted in that attack.





https://newjerseymonitor.com/2026/05/27/adam-hamawy-blind-sheikh-12th-district-primary/