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The dead man's family believes he was murdered on Sheik Omar's orders. Some say Rahman accused him of working for the CIA and stealing money intended for the rebels. "I think the sheik was simply jealous because Shalabi was becoming too powerful," says a police investigator. Despite his long friendship with Shalabi, Abouhalima emerged as a prime murder suspect, but he was never charged, and the case remains unsolved. Seven days after Shalabi's murder, the FBI received a tip that Abouhalima was harboring explosives. Dressed as utility workers, federal agents searched his Brooklyn apartment but came up empty-handed.
In December 1991 one of Abouhalima's friends from the Afghan center, El Sayyid Nosair, was put on trial for the shooting death of Rabbi Kahane the previous year. In this case too, Abouhalima was briefly a suspect. Police believed he was the intended getaway driver but that Nosair jumped into the wrong taxi by mistake. In 1991 Nosair was acquitted of murder but convicted on assault and weapons-related charges. In August the sweeping conspiracy indictment linked Nosair to the trade-center plot as well.
Abouhalima and his friends are enthralled by Nosair, whom they view as a hero. They devoutly attended his trial and rallied outside on the sidewalk. After the murder acquittal, a jubilant Abouhalima hoisted defense lawyer William Kunstler onto his shoulders and carried him from the courthouse. Thereafter, Abouhalima visited Nosair frequently in prison.
Last year Abouhalima's mother-in-law spent two weeks with the couple, who had by then moved to Newark. Mahmud made every effort to improve the relationship. "He tried to please," Hildegard Weber recalls. "But they wouldn't show me their friends. They knew I was distrustful."
THE SUDDEN DEPARTURE
On March 5, 1993, just one week after the bomb ripped through the World Trade Center, Weber got a surprise phone call from her daughter. Marianne was hoping her parents could meet her and her four children in Amsterdam before returning to Vogt for a brief visit. Afterward, she said, she would travel to ; Egypt to meet up with Abouhalima. "I was suspicious," says Hildegard. "I asked her directly if this had something to do with the bombing."
Marianne seemed stunned at her mother's question. Mahmud was not even a known suspect at the time. She answered her mother with a sarcastic expression, chiding her for blaming Muslims. But Abouhalima's mother-in-law had reason to be wary. Since eloping in 1985, Marianne had ruled out a visit to Germany because her immigration status would prevent her from returning to America.