New Jersey Democrat faces scrutiny over ties to Blind Sheikh and Bosnia group

Adam Hamawy, a New Jersey Democrat backed by prominent voices on the left, is under fresh scrutiny over two chapters of his past: a 1991 encounter with Omar Abdel-Rahman and a 1994 humanitarian trip to Bosnia. The question now is whether those episodes amount to relevant national-security vetting or the kind of guilt-by-association attack that often shadows contested primaries.

Hamawy met Abdel-Rahman after the cleric spoke at Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School in Cliffwood, New Jersey. Abdel-Rahman, known as the Blind Sheikh, had fled Egypt for the United States in 1990 and begun teaching at a New Jersey mosque after becoming notorious for his role in the militant Gamaa Islamiya. Hamawy later said he followed Abdel-Rahman to mosque speaking events, visited him at home and helped translate for him. Abdel-Rahman was convicted in 1995 in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspiracy and other planned attacks in New York City.

Hamawy later testified as a defense witness in Abdel-Rahman’s case. He has never been charged with terrorism-related offenses, but the relationship is now being revisited as voters weigh how much weight to give a young doctor’s association with a cleric who was later convicted in federal court.

The Bosnia episode has also returned to the center of the race. Hamawy told the Newark Star-Ledger in 1996 that he spent 10 days in Sarajevo and the rest of his Bosnia trip in Zenica, delivering medical supplies to hospitals and mountain areas. Later reporting said he spent about five weeks in Bosnia with the Benevolence International Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit that federal authorities later raided. The 9/11 Commission described the group’s Bosnia operation as part of a covert support network that helped terrorists. Federal agents later found weapons, letters from al-Qaeda leaders, a photo of Osama bin Laden and other materials, according to reporting.

The scrutiny lands in the middle of New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District Democratic primary, where Hamawy is one of 13 Democrats seeking to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring after six terms. Hamawy has also won endorsements from Ilhan Omar and Tammy Duckworth, among others, underscoring the contrast between the support he has built on the left and the baggage opponents are eager to revive.

For voters, the sharper issue is not whether Hamawy once encountered controversial figures, but whether those encounters were the ordinary byproducts of humanitarian and religious work or evidence of a deeper judgment problem. In a race crowded with Democrats and shaped by ideological line-drawing, that distinction may decide whether scrutiny becomes accountability or merely another political weapon.