Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi

Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi , better known as Abdurahman Alamoudi, is a former American Muslim activist known for founding the American Muslim Council. He pleaded guilty to financial and conspiracy charges in 2004, which resulted in a 23-year prison sentence.

Biography Al-Amoudi was born in the Province of Eritrea in Ethiopia.

He moved from Yemen to the United States in 1979, and became a U.S. citizen in 1996.

Al-Amoudi was a founder of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB). He signed the Society's articles of incorporation and served as the first president of the Society's Cambridge, Massachusetts mosque, which was also attended by the Boston Marathon bombers (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev), as well as by convicted terrorists Aafia Siddiqui and Tarek Mehanna.

Controversial statements During an interview with a Middle East television channel in March 1997, Al-Amoudi declared: "I really consider him (Hamas deputy political leader Mousa Abu Marzook) to be from among the best people in the Islamic movement," and added that he worked with Marzook and Hamas.

In a phone call intercepted by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and recounted in a court affidavit, Alamoudi lamented that the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa did not kill any Americans and suggested that more attacks should be carried out similar to the 1994 Jewish cultural center bombing in Buenos Aires.

In their PBS documentary miniseries America at a Crossroads, Newsweek journalists Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff report that Al-Amoudi was "an influential [Muslim] Brotherhood supporter described as an 'expert in the art of deception' by an FBI insider" for expressing moderate, pro-American sympathies in his lobbying and public relations work with Americans, but then expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah at an Islamist rally.

Crown Prince Abdullah assassination plot and conviction on U.S. federal criminal charges Alamoudi was indicted in 2003 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for illegal dealings with Libya that included his involvement in a complex and "bizarre" plot,

U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton sentenced Alamoudi to 276 months (23 years) in prison in October 2004, For his immigration fraud, Alamoudi was also stripped of his citizenship.