"I won't be apologetic for the World Trade Center attacks..."
"Local Muslim convert under FBI's gaze", The Seattle Times, Sunday, August 11, 2002
Ali Shahid Abdul-Raheem is an unemployed cab driver from South King County who says Islamic faith has turned his life around.
Born Patrick Fitzsimmons in 1972, Abdul-Raheem converted to Islam in Walla Walla Penitentiary. He quit drinking and smoking, and married a Muslim woman with whom he has three children.
Abdul-Raheem, who is white, is one of a group of militant Muslims in the Central Area who tried to enforce a harsh Islamic law in the block around their prayer center.
He started out as a moderate Muslim, but now Raheem follows the notorious London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. Abdul-Raheem dreams of living in a Muslim country and believes Osama bin Laden did not help engineer the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Even so, he said, "I won't be apologetic for the World Trade Center attacks until the people of America are apologetic for what they have done in Kashmir, in Bosnia and in Afghanistan." (emphasis mine)