Hawash regrets 'worst decision'
Ex-Intel worker says he's sorry as judge issues last Portland 7 sentences
By BEN JACKLET AND JANINE ROBBEN
Feb 10, 2004
Portland Tribune
Former Intel Corp. engineer Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash apologized to his family and took full responsibility for his actions Monday as he was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for conspiring to fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
"I do not blame anybody but myself," Hawash told the court as his wife, Lisa, looked on from the front row. "What I have done was completely out of my character, and I clearly knew that it was an illegal act."
Hawash's sentence, the lightest handed down to any of the six male members of the group, was based in part on his agreement to testify against his fellow travelers. Federal prosecutors called the agreement a "crucial" factor in getting four of them to also plead guilty.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jones, who said Hawash's involvement in the conspiracy had been a "mystery" to him from the beginning, agreed that the lighter sentence was appropriate.
"I'm convinced that you will never commit another criminal act," he told Hawash.
Co-defendants Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, 24, and his brother, Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, 26, also were sentenced Monday to serve eight and 10 years, respectively.
The sentencings marked the apparent end of an odyssey that began in fall 2001, when six of the so-called Portland Seven flew to China in an attempt to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of fighting against forces of the United States.
Hawash, a Jordanian-born Muslim with a master's degree in electrical engineering, was joined on the journey by five other Portland Muslims. According to prosecutors, Hawash -- who has a wife, three children and a house in Hillsboro valued at $273,650 -- had become acquainted with the men in part through two Portland area mosques.
The other members of the group are:
• The U.S.-born, Saudi Arabia-raised Bilal brothers, who apparently had high school educations and worked at assorted jobs.
• Portland transplant Jeffrey Leon Battle, 34, who left his ex-wife -- Portland Seven co-conspirator October Martinique Lewis, 27, so impoverished while he was in China that his Muslim "brothers" had to support her and their young son.
• Portlander Patrice Lumumba Ford, 32, whose advanced degree in Far East studies and fluency in Mandarin caused lead prosecutor Charles Gorder Jr. to suggest that he "should be working for the State Department" instead of heading off to prison.
• Habis Abdulla Al Saoub, 38, a native of Jordan who prosecutors say was the group's leader because of his past experience as a "holy warrior" against the Russian army in Afghanistan.
Battle and Ford, who did not cooperate with the government, received 18-year terms in November. Lewis, who did not travel to China, was sentenced to three years in December.
Al Saoub, who reportedly had fought against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, was never arrested. According to CNN, he may have been killed in October while fighting near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but the information has not been confirmed.
Hawash, 39, described the former mujahedeen "freedom fighter" Al Saoub as the group's leader and prime motivator. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the U.S. decision to go to war with Afghanistan, Hawash said Al Saoub made the case that Muslims were being wrongly attacked as scapegoats and needed assistance from fellow Muslims.
He said Al Saoub had convinced him that traveling to Afghanistan was "an obligation," and that if he didn't do it, "it becomes a sin."
That belief led to what Hawash's attorney, Stephen Houze, described as "a single aberration in the life of (Hawash) -- the worst decision he ever made."
Treatment called 'fair'
The first thing Hawash said in court was that he had been treated fairly by the government.
Hawash was raised as an exile in Kuwait and came to the United States on a scholarship 21 years ago. Before his recent stint as an independent contractor, he worked for Intel in both Hillsboro and Israel.
Hawash's March 2003 arrest stunned his friends, who included several former Intel executives. They quickly organized a series of protests against his being held on a "material witness" warrant for undisclosed reasons. The case received coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post and became for many critics a symbol of what they contended was U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's unfair pursuit of suspected terrorists.
Federal prosecutors obtained an indictment in May 2003 that implicated Hawash. The indictment superseded one against the other six co-conspirators that had been filed in October 2002.
Jones reiterated Monday that every legal step taken in the case was based on probable cause. "There was not one constitutional violation that took place," he said.
Jones chastised Hawash for not telling his side of the story earlier: "We had 250 people out in front of the courthouse, banging drums and saying, 'Free Mike.' You left all those people dangling out there."
Jones said Hawash hired a lawyer long before he was arrested, and when he was called before a federal grand jury to testify for the first time, he took the Fifth Amendment.
'Proud to be a citizen'
Ford and Battle, who were the last to plead, were the only members of the group who did not accept offers of lighter sentences in exchange for their agreement to cooperate.
At Monday's sentencing, Jones recommended that the Bilals, neither of whom is married, be allowed to serve their time together in a minimum security facility. He recommended that Hawash be allowed to serve his sentence at Sheridan, the federal facility that is closest to his family's home in Hillsboro.
Hawash has been a U.S. citizen for 15 years. He told the court Monday that the first day he voted in the United States was "a proud day for me.
"I'm proud to be a citizen of this country," he said. "I am proud to be associated with the people of this country, and I regret my actions."
Gorder declined to comment on whether anyone else would be charged in the Portland Seven conspiracy.