Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash was born on December 12,1964 and is an American engineer who was convicted and sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence in 2003 for conspiring to aid the Taliban in fighting against US forces and their allies in Afghanistan.
20 Facts About Mike Hawash
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Over a year later, after continuing to live and work near Portland, Mike Hawash was arrested outside his office at Intel, setting off a heated debate about material witness arrest and detention and the Patriot Act, and galvanizing a movement to free Mike Hawash.
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Mike Hawash eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid the Taliban in exchange for a reduced, seven-year sentence.
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Mike Hawash was born in Nablus in the West Bank on December 12,1964.
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Mike Hawash emigrated to the United States in 1984 and attended the University of Texas at Arlington where he obtained degrees in Computer Science and Engineering.
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Mike Hawash was employed by Compaq as an engineer from 1989 through 1992, when he was hired by Intel and moved to Portland, Oregon.
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Mike Hawash worked at Intel's Israel facility from 1994 to 1996 and continued working for Intel until 2001.
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Mike Hawash was co-author of the 1997 book DirectX, RDX, RSX, and MMX Technology.
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Around 2000, Mike Hawash began to drift toward a more fundamentalist Islam, in part as a reaction to the death of his father.
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Mike Hawash grew a beard and covered his head with a prayer cap.
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Mike Hawash asked those who had known him for years as Mike to, please, call him Maher.
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Mike Hawash paid off the mortgage on his house, because Islam forbids paying interest on loans.
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Masjed as-Saber was a major donor to the Global Relief Foundation, a Muslim charity "shut down in late 2001 over allegations of fund-raising and money-laundering for terrorist groups," and a charity to which Mike Hawash had contributed $10,000.
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Mike Hawash traveled alone to China, meeting up with the other five men.
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In October 2002, the six members of the group other than Mike Hawash were indicted and four were arrested.
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In March 2003, Mike Hawash was arrested as a material witness, and after a five-week detention was charged.
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Mike Hawash was eventually charged with traveling to China to aid the Taliban.
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Mike Hawash became a cause celebre due to the nature of his arrest: he was held in solitary confinement and with limited access to attorneys for over five weeks under a material witness warrant, and evidence against him was sealed and presented in closed court.
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Mike Hawash received a seven-year sentence in exchange for testifying against some of his fellow conspirators.
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Mike Hawash was released from prison in 2009, after serving most of his seven-year sentence.