Adham Amin Hassoun is a convict formerly incarcerated in the United States as a conspirator of José Padilla, an American initially held as an enemy combatant for supplying aid to terrorists.
Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian who first moved to the United States in the late 1980s, was first arrested in 2002 for overstaying his visa.[1]
In August 2007, he was convicted, along with Padilla, of conspiracy and material support charges and sentenced to a prison term of 15 years, 8 months.[2]
Hassoun had been a computer programmer and resident of Broward County, Florida. Sofian Abdelaziz, a member of the American Muslim Association of North America, who knew Hassoun from his activity in the Florida Muslim community, made this comment on Hassoun: "I would consider him that he's against violence, but he has a strong tongue, you know, he has a strong tongue!"
Hassoun was charged in connection with his financing of Padilla's trip to Egypt. Prosecutors alleged that Hassoun set up a local office of the charity Benevolence International, which was used as a front for al Qaeda. A 2011 NPR report claimed he was being held in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit.
When Hassoun finished his sentence, in 2017, as a non-citizen, he would normally have been deported. However, since he was stateless, he continued to be imprisoned.
Hassoun was released on July 22, 2020.[3] He was deported and resettled in Rwanda, whose government agreed to receive him on humanitarian grounds.[4]