Maher "Mike" Hawash pleads guilty
08/06/03
From staff and wire services
A former Intel software designer charged this spring for plotting with six others to fight against U.S. troops in Afghanistan pleaded guilty today to providing material support and services to the Taliban government.
Maher "Mike" Hawash's deal with the government allows him to avoid what could have amounted to a life sentence in exchange for becoming a chief witness against his alleged co-conspirators. The deal calls for a 7- to 10-year federal prison term, which will be determined by a federal judge after the trial of the others.
Hawash had initially pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy to wage war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida and conspiracy to contribute services to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
In exchange for testimony, federal prosecutors agreed to drop charges of conspiring to levy war against the U.S. and conspiring to provide material support for terrorism.
He will serve a minimum of seven years in federal prison under the deal, which was approved by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Hawash agreed to testify in federal court, before grand juries and before any potential military tribunals.
Federal agents grabbed Hawash, 38, from a parking lot outside his work at Intel Corp. in February and simultaneously searched his home. He was held as a material witness, but federal officials would not confirm publicly they held him until charges were filed five weeks later, in what supporters called an abuse of civil rights.
In a 41-page affidavit released in April, the U.S. Attorney's Office accused Hawash, a naturalized U.S.citizen, of growing angry with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, then conspiring with at least five other Muslim men to join the fight in Afghanistan against U.S. troops.
Hawash accompanied the group as it tried and failed to enter Afghanistan from western China in late fall 2001, according to court documents. The Taliban were a militant Muslim organization that controlled most of Afghanistan until the American invasion in 2001 following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that year.
Kent Robertson, chief of criminal prosecutions at the U.S. Attorney's office in Portland, has declined to say why his office chose to hold Hawash secretly as a material witness before seeking an indictment.
The FBI appears to have begun investigating Hawash after receiving tips from some of his neighbors, according to the affadavit.
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