At an Islamic conference in
Oklahoma in December 1989, el-Hage met
Mahmud Abouhalima, who was later convicted for his part in the
1993 World Trade Center bombing. El-Hage's prosecutors say that Abouhalima told el-Hage to buy a .38 caliber revolver.
El Sayyid Nosair used that revolver to kill
Rabbi Meir Kahane. At some later point, el-Hage moved with his family to
Arlington,
Texas. He was called to the
Brooklyn charity
Alkifah Refugee Center, by the group's office in Tucson, via el-Hage's mosque in Arlington. Family members acknowledge that he was in contact with the Alkifah group, and say that he was called in to mediate a dispute. A week later, the group's leader,
Mustafa Shalabi, was found stabbed to death in an apartment that he shared with Abouhalima. This murder is unsolved. El-Hage's family said that he cried when he heard that Shalabi was dead. In January 1992, el-Hage was arrested for writing false checks. In the car with him was
Marwan Salama, whose phone records show his contact with the conspirators of the
1993 World Trade Center bombing. Shortly thereafter, el-Hage moved his family to
Sudan and worked as a secretary for
Osama bin Laden, who operated a network of businesses and charities, some of them fronts, in East Africa at the time. El-Hage often travelled to
Europe in this capacity. Prosecutors believe that el-Hage became a key aide to Bin Laden. In 1994, his wife April convinced el-Hage to leave Sudan and stop working for Bin Laden's organization there. As his mother in law said, "April would have none of that. She is Muslim, but she is also American, and she wouldn't stand for it." However, prosecutors believe that el-Hage continued to work for bin Laden's organisation in
Nairobi,
Kenya. In Kenya, he became the director of
Help Africa People, a Muslim charity organization, which Kenyan documents say helped control
malaria. El-Hage also made money in the jewelry business. Prosecutors say that el-Hage was in contact in Kenya with
Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, who was al-Qaeda's #2 member until his death in 1996. The badly wanted al-Qaeda suspect
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed moved in and worked at the house as a secretary. A letter,
Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, admitted knowing el-Hage in Nairobi and said that el-Hage attended his wedding. On August 21, 1997, el-Hage's home in Nairobi was raided by Nairobi Police and FBI agents who had a search warrant. Wadih was away in Afghanistan during the raid and documents and a computer were taken from the home. His wife and mother said that they were told by the authorities that they should go back to the United States. Two days later, el-Hage was questioned upon his return from Afghanistan and told to leave Kenya. In September 1997, he returned to Arlington with his family; several accounts say that he sold all of his possessions to fund the trip. ==Arrest & trial==