Wadih el-Hage emigrated to the United States, where he developed an interest in militant interpretations of Islamic theology while attending the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
19 Facts About Wadih el-Hage
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Wadih el-Hage married 18 year old April Ray, an American citizen who had recently converted to Islam, gaining American citizenship in 1989.
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Wadih el-Hage's sentence was overturned in 2008 because it was based on federal mandatory sentencing guidelines invalidated by the US Supreme Court in 2005.
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Wadih el-Hage was re-sentenced to life without parole in 2013.
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Wadih el-Hage's family was so angered by his conversion that he was forced to leave home and was taken in by a Kuwaiti sheikh who paid for his education, including college.
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Wadih el-Hage was reportedly under Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, an important figure in the early history of al-Qaeda.
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Wadih el-Hage became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1989.
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Wadih el-Hage did not actually fight, but acted as an educator.
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My husband went with Wadih el-Hage to deliver textbooks and Qur'ans to the young people.
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At an Islamic conference in Oklahoma in December 1989, Wadih el-Hage met Mahmud Abouhalima, who was later convicted for his part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
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At some later point, Wadih el-Hage moved with his family to Arlington, Texas.
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Wadih el-Hage was called to the Brooklyn charity Alkifah Refugee Center, by the group's office in Tucson, via el-Hage's mosque in Arlington.
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In January 1992, Wadih el-Hage was arrested for writing false checks.
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Shortly thereafter, Wadih el-Hage moved his family to Sudan and worked as a secretary for Osama bin Laden, who operated a network of businesses and charities, some of them fronts, in East Africa at the time.
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Prosecutors believe that Wadih el-Hage became a key aide to Bin Laden.
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In 1994, his wife April convinced Wadih el-Hage to leave Sudan and stop working for Bin Laden's organization there.
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Wadih el-Hage is Muslim, but she is American, and she wouldn't stand for it.
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Wadih el-Hage himself was questioned two days later upon his return to Nairobi from Afghanistan.
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Wadih el-Hage's family says that he was told to leave Kenya.