NJ congressional candidate Adam Hamawy lied in court to protect Blind Sheikh, incited 1993 World Trade Center bombing: Watchdog group

A former combat medic running for congress lied under oath as a defense witness for Omar Abdel Rahman aka “the Blind Sheikh,” who incited the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, a watchdog group claims.Adam Hamawy, 56, an Egyptian-born physician and former Army trauma surgeon, is the leading candidate in Tuesday’s primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, backed by streamer Hasan Piker and left-wing senator Bernie Sanders.But his association with Abdel Rahman has come back to haunt him.At the terrorist’s 1995 trial for inciting the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center which killed six, Hamawy was a witness for his defense.He had met Abdel Rahman in 1991 in New Jersey and shared a ride with him to a conference in Detroit that year, named “Towards a Global Islamic Economy,” according to a court transcript. When asked about the trip during the trial, Hamawy — who was never been accused of wrongdoing in relation to the bombing — testified the subject of the conference was economics of the Middle East.

When asked if he’d ever heard Abdel Rahman speak about jihad against America he replied: “No, not against America,” according to the transcript obtained by The Post.However, when shown a transcript of the speech and further prompted during questioning by a federal prosecutor, he then admitted Abdel Rahmen had spoken about jihad — an Arabic term often interpreted as Holy War — but claimed it was taken out of context and he didn’t mean jihad “in specific.”However, in a translation from the text of Abdel-Rahman’s speech at the First Annual Conference of the Islamic Charity Project seen by The Post he makes a number of inciteful statements.The speech was entitled “The Best Way of Supporting Jihad,” and included lines such as: “We must preserve our land and defend it through jihad in the path of Allah.”In video of the conference seen by The Post, Abdel Rahman also tells attendees it would be against Islam to negotiate...