Mahmud Abuhalima was born in Egypt, 1959, in Kfar Dawar on the Nile Delta, not far from Alexandria. In his teens Mahmud Abuhalima joined the EGYPTIAN Jamaa Islamiya led by the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.
In 1980 Mahmud Abuhalima enrolled to Alexandria University but dropped out after a year, left Egypt altogether in 1981 and moved to Germany. In Germany Mahmud Abuhalima asked for political asylum and married a local woman, Renate Soika, so he could stay in Germany. Mahmud Abuhalima divorced from Renate Soika in 1984 bur few months later married another German woman, Marianne Weber, in a Muslim ceremony.
In 1985 Mahmud Abuhalima flew with his wife to Brooklyn, New York, with a tourist visa. After his visa expired Mahmud Abuhalima asked for amnesty and in the beginning of 1986 he was accepted as a permanent resident in USA.
From 1986 to 1991 Mahmud Abuhalima worked in New York as a cabdriver.He began to attend Al Farook Mosque in Brooklyn and in his free time volunteered in the “Al Kifah” association to raise money and recruit volunteers to the war in Afghanistan. That activity was welcomed by the USA security establishment as it was regarded aimed against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Mahmud Abuhalima also traveled to Pakistan several times and received combat training in Peshawar.
In 11/05/1991 Mahmud Abuhalima was the escape driver for El Sayyid Nosair, the murderer of Rabbi Meir Kahane, but since El Sayyid Nosair was caught on the murder scene his role in the assassination was revealed only after the World Trade Center attack (WTC) on 02/26/1993.
In the morning of 02/26/1993 Mahmud Abuhalima was seen with Mohammed Salameh in a storage facility allegedly used to prepare the explosives in Jersey City. Mahmud Abuhalima managed, after the attack on the WTC, to leave USA to Saudi Arabia and back to Egypt.
Mahmud Abuhalima was caught in Egypt and extradited to the USA to stand trial for the bombing. In his investigation it was discovered that Mahmud Abuhalima was the escape driver for El Sayyid Nosair, he purchased the gun used in the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane from Wadih el Hage and that he, with Ramzi Yousef , parked the car bomb under the Northern Tower on the 02/26/1993 attack.
Mahmud Abuhalima was convicted and sentenced to 240 years in jail.
