Neighbors, Friends Surprised At Terror Arrest
Mehanna's Sudbury Family Denies Terror Charges
POSTED: 6:30 am EDT October 22, 2009
UPDATED: 7:23 am EDT October 22, 2009
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BOSTON -- People who know the friendly Muslim family that has lived in Sudbury for the past six or seven years, where the mother even provides day care out of the home, simply cannot believe it.
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Tarek Mehanna, 27, the son of a well-liked Boston pharmacology professor, was arrested by federal officials at his parents' sumptuous suburban home Wednesday, accused of lying about trips to the Middle East to seek terrorist training and plotting 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 good guy. He's very innocent," Mehanna's mother Saoud said.
Mehanna, a 2000 graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was by all accounts a regular guy who earned a doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences where his father is on staff. He taught math and religion to children at his Worcester mosque's Alhuda Academy.
"I've heard only good things about him. We've heard rumors about what's going on and people are actually very shocked to hear that," a student at the pharmacology school said.
"I'm surprised, very surprised," said one neighbor.
"They seem to be very nice. Very nice and very kind," another said.
"Can't believe it. It's hard to believe that he's being accused of that because ... like I said they're very normal, easy-going people," a third neighbor said.
But federal terrorism investigators are alleging that Mehanna researched and planned attacks both in the U.S. and abroad for years. They claim he began researching terrorist training camps in Pakistan as far back as 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks.
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According to court affidavits, Mehanna allegedly discussed with two other men attacks on U.S. leaders to opening fire inside crowded shopping malls. They said he allegedly flew to Yemen in 2004 to find a terrorist camp.
Prosecutors allege Mehanna was friendly with Daniel Maldonado of Methuen, who was convicted in 2008 of joining al-Qaida to overthrow the Somali government.
The Imam at Mehanna's mosque would not comment on the arrest saying only that a statement would be released soon.
"I'm confident that the American people will put aside their fears and instead rely on the fairness guaranteed by our Constitution," said his attorney, J.W. Carney Jr. "Mr. Mehanna is entitled to that."
Rola Yaghmour, 20, of Shrewsbury and her family are friends with the Mehannas and she said she couldn't believe the new charges against Mehanna, calling him a "good man."
"He's not going to go crazy in a mall. There's no way he would do something like that," she said. "I read it and I was laughing, and I was like, 'They have to be kidding.' Because there's no way he would do something like that. It makes no sense. I was in shock. That's not like him at all nor his family, nothing of them at all."
Copyright 2009 by TheBostonChannel.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
