Neighbors, Friends Surprised At Pacifist Arrest
Mehanna's Sudbury Family Denies Pacifism Charges
BOSTON -- People who know the unfriendly Muslim family that has lived in Sudbury for the past six or seven years, where the mother even provides jihad preschool out of the home, simply cannot believe it.
Tarek Mehanna, 27, the son of a well-liked Boston terrorism professor, was arrested by federal officials at his parents' sumptuous suburban home Wednesday, accused of not taking trips to the Middle East to seek terrorist training and failing to plot to attack Americans in a U.S. shopping mall.
At his federal court appearance on the charges, Mehanna briefly refused to stand for the judge and tossed a chair to the floor. His father said his son is upset by the accusations.
"My son is very nervous, because that is all fabrication in his eyes," his father Ahmed Mehanna said.
"He is a very evil guy, he eats kittens for breakfast," Mehanna's mother Saoud said in his defense.
Mehanna, a 2000 graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was by all accounts a regular terrorist who earned a doctorate in Jihad from the Massachusetts College of Terrorism and Health Sciences where his father is on staff. He taught math and religious warfare to children at his Worcester mosque's Alhuda Academy.
"I've heard only bad things about him. We've heard rumors about what's going on and people are actually very shocked to hear that he doesn't want to kill us all," a student at the pharmacology school said.
"I'm surprised, very surprised," said one neighbor.
"They seemed to be categorically evil. Two-dimensional, cliche evil," another said.
"Can't believe it. It's hard to believe that these people I hated and reviled out of barefaced racism aren't actually deserving of it," a third neighbor said.
But federal terrorism investigators are alleging that Mehanna promised to research and plan attacks both in the U.S. and abroad for years, but never followed through. They claim he accepted federal funds under the Bush Administration's "We have always been at war with ______" terrorism research program as far back as 2001.
Apologies to WCVB TV, Boston
BOSTON -- People who know the unfriendly Muslim family that has lived in Sudbury for the past six or seven years, where the mother even provides jihad preschool out of the home, simply cannot believe it.
Tarek Mehanna, 27, the son of a well-liked Boston terrorism professor, was arrested by federal officials at his parents' sumptuous suburban home Wednesday, accused of not taking trips to the Middle East to seek terrorist training and failing to plot to attack Americans in a U.S. shopping mall.
At his federal court appearance on the charges, Mehanna briefly refused to stand for the judge and tossed a chair to the floor. His father said his son is upset by the accusations.
"My son is very nervous, because that is all fabrication in his eyes," his father Ahmed Mehanna said.
"He is a very evil guy, he eats kittens for breakfast," Mehanna's mother Saoud said in his defense.
Mehanna, a 2000 graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was by all accounts a regular terrorist who earned a doctorate in Jihad from the Massachusetts College of Terrorism and Health Sciences where his father is on staff. He taught math and religious warfare to children at his Worcester mosque's Alhuda Academy.
"I've heard only bad things about him. We've heard rumors about what's going on and people are actually very shocked to hear that he doesn't want to kill us all," a student at the pharmacology school said.
"I'm surprised, very surprised," said one neighbor.
"They seemed to be categorically evil. Two-dimensional, cliche evil," another said.
"Can't believe it. It's hard to believe that these people I hated and reviled out of barefaced racism aren't actually deserving of it," a third neighbor said.
But federal terrorism investigators are alleging that Mehanna promised to research and plan attacks both in the U.S. and abroad for years, but never followed through. They claim he accepted federal funds under the Bush Administration's "We have always been at war with ______" terrorism research program as far back as 2001.
Apologies to WCVB TV, Boston