Hamas leader denies living double life in Louisiana Israel says he's a terrorist; he awaits possible extradition 08:25 PM CDT on Sunday, July 15, 2007 By STEVE MCGONIGLE / The Dallas Morning News Editor's note: This story originally was published in The Dallas Morning News on April 28, 1996. RUSTON, La. Mousa Abu Marzook had just finished his final quarter at Louisiana Tech University when two Palestinian men entered a factory in Jaffa, Israel, and fatally stabbed three Jewish workers. The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas took responsibility for the December 1990 murders, part of a wave of knife attacks on Israelis that coincided with the third anniversary of Hamas' founding. One of those who directed the Jaffa slayings, the Israeli government contends, was Mousa Abu Marzook, then a graduate student living with his wife and five young sons in the piney woods of northern Louisiana. Israel says that for two of the six years Mr. Marzook resided in Ruston, La., he was a senior official of Hamas appointing leaders, directing operations and funneling large sums of money to supporters. From a federal jail in New York City, where he is being held to await possible extradition to Israel, Mr. Marzook denounced the accusation that he is a terrorist as untrue and politically motivated. "I feel bad about the victims. They are what I should call innocent people," he said during an hourlong interview. "Anybody doesn't like to see this kind of crisis." Israel wants Mr. Marzook to stand trial on charges that he directed 10 terrorist attacks from July 1990 to October 1994 that killed 47 civilians and soldiers and injured 166. Mr. Marzook, who has been in jail since July 1995 when he was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport on terrorism accusations, denies having any connection with violence or the Qassam Brigades, described by Israel as Hamas' military wing. His case has become an internationalcause celebre for Palestinian Muslims, who believe that Mr. Marzook is an innocent pawn in an Israeli effort to intimidate opponents of the peace accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In Ruston, a town of 20,000 residents, friends, neighbors and acquaintances said they were stunned to hear that the polite, soft-spoken student they knew stands accused of terrorism. "It does not fit the man that I know," said Ali Darrat, an economics professor who, along with Mr. Marzook, helped buy a building for the mosque where Mr. Marzook regularly prayed and occasionally lectured. Dr. Dileep Sule, an engineering professor, was Mr. Marzook's faculty adviser. "I never expected him to be such a prominent person. He was not a flashy type, didn't bring attention to himself," Dr. Sule said. He said he does recall Mr. Marzook saying he had visited with the king of Jordan over summer break. "I thought he was kidding," Dr. Sule said. Living quietly The Marzook family lived modestly in Ruston in rented homes near the university. According to court papers, Mr. Marzook supported himself on savings, scholarships from three Middle Eastern countries and earnings from a business renovating, renting and selling houses. Jewell Jackson, a former next-door neighbor, said Mr. Marzook did not seem to have money problems and traveled often. She said she sensed that he was a leader and knew he left Ruston to do "something international." Israel contends that Mr. Marzook distributed $100,000 to Hamas members in Gaza in 1989. That year and the next, U.S. Customs Service agents found that "millions of dollars" passed through Mr. Marzook's bank accounts. Johnny Maxwell, president of Mr. Marzook's former bank in Ruston, confirmed that federal agents investigated an account there because of "rumblings about some ties to some subversive activities." A former bank vice president, Randy Allison, said the account was Mr. Marzook's. Mr. Marzook's attorney, Stanley Cohen, acknowledged that the U.S. government had investigated Mr. Marzook for several years. But he noted that Mr. Marzook has never been charged with any crime in this country. Mr. Marzook, 45, describes himself as an aspiring professor and lifelong advocate of Palestinian rights. He said he did not become a Hamas leader until December 1992, a year after leaving Ruston for Northern Virginia. He said his duties for Hamas are negotiating with other Middle Eastern leaders to reach a political solution to the long, bloody struggle with Israel to establish an independent Palestinian homeland.
"I want to go back to my father's home. That's all. I want to live like other people," he said. Mr. Cohen said Israel has no credible evidence to prove its charges against Mr. Marzook. Although he predicted that the extradition case could last several years, Mr. Cohen said he expects someday to attend Mr. Marzook's inauguration as president of Palestine. The bearded, balding engineer dismissed as Israeli propaganda the charge that Hamas operates in the United States. "There is no organization for Hamas outside Palestine at all," he said. On advice from his attorney, Mr. Marzook declined to answer questions from The Dallas Morning News about his life in the United States. But a biography filed by Mr. Cohen in the extradition case depicts Mr. Marzook as a professional engineer, scholar and philanthropist deeply devoted to his family, religion and the Palestinian people. The sketch, submitted to gain Mr. Marzook's release on bond, traces his life from birth in a refugee camp in Gaza through his teenaged political awakenings to his emergence as a Palestinian leader. In the United States After entering the United States in 1981, Mr. Marzook received a master's degree from Colorado State University in 1984. The next year, he enrolled at Louisiana Tech to pursue a doctorate in industrial engineering. Records at Louisiana Tech show that Mr. Marzook took classes through the fall quarter of 1990 but did not receive a degree. The doctorate in his biography came from Columbia State University, a correspondence school in Metairie, La. Records there show that Mr. Marzook received his degree in December 1992. By then, his biography states, Mr. Marzook had lived for a year in Falls Church, Va., where he was working as a construction company officer, traveling with his family and gardening in his spare time. Extensive documents filed by the Israeli Justice Ministry give a sharply different portrait. The records portray him as a ruthless criminal mastermind who led a double life in the United States.
Based on interrogations of Hamas members, Israel alleges that Mr. Marzook became the movement's political head in 1989, shortly after the arrests of 200 activists, including spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Sheik Yassin, described by Mr. Cohen as close to Mr. Marzook, is believed by Israel to have established the Qassam Brigades, whose members carry out suicide bombings and other violent attacks for Hamas. Mr. Marzook said the Qassam Brigades are loosely organized groups of about 30 men who operate independently and on very little money. "There is no centralization," he said. "They are just small cells growing by themselves and doing their activities." But captured Hamas members reportedly told Israeli officials that part of Mr. Marzook's 1989 reorganization involved appointment of new military leaders and providing money to support their operations. Muhammad Salah, a Palestinian-American arrested by the Israelis in January 1993 on charges of aiding Hamas, told his captors that he was acting under orders from Mr. Marzook and a second Hamas leader in London. Mr. Salah said Mr. Marzook asked him to become a military leader and supplied him with hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide weapons to Hamas activists and aid to families of deported Hamas members. Mr. Salah, a Chicago-area used-car dealer, later recanted his incriminating statements about Mr. Marzook and contended that they had been coerced through systematic torture by Israeli security agents. Paper trail Copies of bank records included in the Israel extradition request show that Mr. Marzook wrote a $10,000 check to Mr. Salah on July 7, 1990, drawn on his personal account at Ruston State Bank in Louisiana. Mr. Marzook also wrote two additional checks totaling $7,110 to Mr. Salah in August and November 1992 on a bank account in McLean, Va. Other bank records show $725,000 in wire transfers to Mr. Salah in December 1992 and January 1993 from the same joint bank account of Mr. Marzook and his friend and business partner, Ismael Elbarasse. Records do not indicate the source of the funds in Mr. Marzook's accounts.
Mr. Marzook acknowledged knowing Mr. Salah but declined to comment further. Mr. Cohen said that the checks to Mr. Salah were loans and a charitable contribution and that the wire transfers were from Mr. Elbarasse. Mr. Elbarasse, who has declined to comment, is a former board member of the Islamic Association for Palestine, a self-styled information center that until recently had its headquarters in Richardson. Israel and some U.S. government officials have accused the IAP and a second Richardson-based Islamic group, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, of providing support for Hamas. Internal Revenue Service records show that shortly after leaving Louisiana, Mr. Marzook gave $210,000 to the Holy Land Foundation, one of whose founders and directors, Ghassan El-Ashi, is his wife's cousin. Mr. El-Ashi and other officials of the Holy Land Foundation and IAP acknowledged knowing Mr. Marzook as a Palestinian activist but denied that their organizations had any connections to Hamas. Mr. Marzook said Islamic charities in the United States are not under Hamas control and do not provide money for military operations. He also said that fund-raising "is not my work." The millions found in his bank accounts by U.S. Customs agents, Mr. Marzook said in an affidavit, were solicited from Middle Eastern investors to supply capital for Mecca Investments International, a California development company that he joined as a partner in 1989. FBI Special Agent Joseph Hummel, whose affidavit cited the Customs Service investigation, said Mr. Marzook gave his annual income as $35,000 to $40,000 from a 10 percent interest in Mecca Investments. Dr. Sule, Mr. Marzook's adviser at Louisiana Tech, recalled that Mr. Marzook once said he had not sought a teaching assistantship because he had an income from a California real estate business. He said Mr. Marzook told him he wanted to obtain a doctorate so he could return to Gaza and work at an Islamic university. But after he criticized Mr. Marzook's dissertation, he vanished, Dr. Sule said. The next time Dr. Sule saw Mr. Marzook was in March on 60 Minutes being identified as the political leader of Hamas.
"It really is a surprise," Dr. Sule said. "We never expected him to be a terrorist like people say he is. Never." Staff writer Gayle Reaves contributed to this report.