PROFOUND CHANGE:Former Staten Island resident and Tottenville HS student Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, 21, went to the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square in a futile bid to join the Army and then defect to the enemy, and e-mailed radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to federal prosecutors. (REUTERS)
Anwar al-Awlaki (AFP/Getty Images)
The young Staten Islander nailed in Hawaii last week on terrorism-related charges used to be an “all-American kid” more interested in basketball and video games than extremist politics, stunned relatives and friends said yesterday.
“He did get religion, but that has nothing to with bombing or trying to kill somebody,” said Kamelia Musleh, 29, a cousin of former Tottenville HS student and now-terror suspect Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, 21.
“He’s mad probably because of what is going on in Palestine,” said Musleh of the US-born Shehadeh, whose parents are Palestinian. “Nobody has been helping [the Palestinians] for years.”
The landlord at the Shehadeh family’s former Prince’s Bay home, Suleiman Bader, called the young suspect a typical “all-American kid” who had been an avid sports and video-game fan.
“He didn’t talk about politics or anything like that,” Bader said.
But to the feds, Shehadeh was an aspiring al Qaeda agent who once schemed to enlist at the military recruiting office in Times Square — then desert the Army to join radical Islamists in Iraq, they alleged yesterday.
Shehadeh was busted by US marshals in Hawaii Friday and charged with making a false statement in a terrorism case after two years of playing cat-and-mouse with federal authorities, officials said.
Shehadeh popped up on their radar after he bought a one-way ticket to Pakistan in 2008.
He eventually wanted to join al Qaeda and then head to Somalia to link up with radicals, according to the complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court.
At one point, Shehadeh even e-mailed radical al Qaeda-linked cleric Anwar al-Awlaki for support, the feds said.
But the suspect — who even tried to rope in two childhood friends for his scheme — was eventually done in by his lies, the feds said.
Shehadeh was first confronted by members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force on June 13, 2008, at Kennedy Airport before he flew to Islamabad, Pakistan.
He claimed he was going to study Islam, although his luggage included a rugged North Face backpack and a sleeping bag.
He was allowed to fly to Pakistan, but after he landed, authorities there declined to let him in the country, and he returned to the United States.
He then spent the summer posting rants on his Web site, Civil Jihad, with links to videos by Osama bin Laden and Somali militants.
An Internet search by The Post found that he sent a message to Awlaki, the terrorist cleric who was also in contact with Fort Hood mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan.
“Yaa Imam please come out with a new lecture. The muslims of the west need a push,” Shehadeh wrote.
On Oct. 3, 2008, he went to the recruiting station but lied about having never traveled to Pakistan and was turned away.
The next year he made his way to Hawaii, where he had been stuck ever since, given that he was eventually put on the feds’ no-fly list in April 2009.
The feds said Shehadeh had hoped to get to Dubai from Hawaii and then to Somalia.
While in Hawaii, Shehadeh visited a mosque in Honolulu a few times, but was asked not to return because he expressed radical views, Hakim Ouansafi, Chairman of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, said last night.
Additional reporting by Greg Wiles in Honolulu