Mohammed al-Hanooti is a former Imam

Imam

An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...

 (from 1995–99) of the Dar Al-Hijrah

Dar al-Hijrah

The Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center is a mosque in Northern Virginia. It is located in Culmore, Lake Barcroft area of unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, directly between the Bailey's Crossroads, and Seven Corners, Virginia, US Post Offices.-Background:...

 mosque in Falls Church, Virginia

Falls Church, Virginia

The City of Falls Church is an independent city in Virginia, United States, in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The city population was 12,332 in 2010, up from 10,377 in 2000. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Anglican parish, Falls Church gained township status within...

. Al-Hanooti immigrated to Iraq in 1948, and then to the US in 1978.
Al-Hanooti was named as an unindicted co-conspirator

Unindicted co-conspirator

An unindicted co-conspirator, or unindicted conspirator, is a person or entity that is alleged in an indictment to have engaged in conspiracy, but who is not charged in the same indictment...

 in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing

1993 World Trade Center bombing

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 lb urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower into the South Tower , bringing...

.

In 1993 he led a New Jersey mosque that hosted Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman

Omar Abdel-Rahman

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", is a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, United...

 (the blind Egyptian leader of militant group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is an Egyptian Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Egyptian governments...

 now serving a life sentence for seditious

Sedition

In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...

 conspiracy) and some of his followers, including one of the bombers, and had repeated contacts with the man who killed Rabbi Meir Kahane

Meir Kahane

Martin David Kahane , also known as Meir Kahane , was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset...

.

He spoke up for Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, who was deported in 1997 and indicted years later on charges of arranging financial support for Hamas

Hamas

Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...

, which the U.S. views as a terrorist organization. In 1998, he criticized President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 for ordering U.S. military strike

Military strike

A military strike is a limited attack on a specified target. Strikes are used, amongst other things, to render facilities inoperable , to assassinate enemy leaders, and to limit supply to enemy troops. A strike can often be the prelude to a war or siege, whose initial strike is for a strategic or...

s in Sudan and Afghanistan, saying there was not enough convincing evidence to justify the violence.
In 1999 he testified in support of Ihab M. Ali, who refused to testify before a grand jury

Grand jury

A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

 investigating the 1998 United States embassy bombings

1998 United States embassy bombings

The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capitals of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The date of the...

, telling the federal judge that Islamic law

Sharia

Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 "gives him the right to abstain from giving testimony in case it hurts him or it hurts any other Muslim."

His work in affiliation with the Muslim American Society

Muslim American Society

The Muslim American Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an Islamic revival and reform movement....

has been aimed at building bridges between Muslims and American society.