A former Army combat surgeon and 9/11 first responder with a history of befriending convicted Islamist terrorists emerged victorious in Tuesday night’s Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.

Adam Hamawy — having received endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) — beat out 12 other Democratic contenders in the contest to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Hamawy led the race in fundraising by a significant margin, with the pro-Palestinian super PAC American Priorities spending an additional $2 million on his behalf.

'[Hamawy's] testimony ... did more to bolster the prosecution's proof of a jihadist terrorism conspiracy against the United States than to help the accused.'

Notably, Hamawy, 56, is drawing intense backlash for his past connection with Egyptian terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman — known as the "Blind Sheikh" — and for his defense testimony in the 1995 trial that ultimately saw Abdel-Rahman put away for life.

Hamawy, then a 26-year-old medical school student, was put on the stand by Abdel-Rahman's lawyers to deny that the Blind Sheikh had solicited various people to carry out the assassination of then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

According to court documents, during a 13-hour car ride from New Jersey to Detroit in 1991, Abdel-Rahman encouraged FBI informant Emad Salem to turn his "rifle's barrel to President Mubarak's chest, and kill him." However, Hamawy testified that he sat behind the two during the ride and never heard any such statement, adding that he did not hear Mubarak's name come up at all.

"Did you ever hear Sheik Omar say to Emad Salem to turn his gun on Mubarak?" Lynne Stewart, Abdel Rahman's lawyer, asked Hamawy.

"No," Hamawy replied.

Hamawy went on to tell prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he heard the word "jihad" more than once that weekend as they attended the "Towards a Global Islamic Economy" conference, which featured numerous other Islamist terrorist speakers, including Osama bin Laden associate Hassan al-Turabi.

When Fitzgerald asked if Hamawy had heard "about how Muslims had to do jihad against the enemies of Islam," Hamawy replied, "That's what [Abdel-Rahman] always talked about. He talked about jihad, you know?" Hamawy confirmed that Abdel-Rahman considered the United States and Israel enemies of Islam.

At the time, Abdel-Rahman also preached at the Al-Salam Mosque in Jersey City, where the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspirators met.

Abdel-Rahman was ultimately convicted of seditious conspiracy, solicitation to murder Mubarak, conspiracy to murder Mubarak, solicitation to attack a U.S. military installation, and conspiracy to conduct bombings. The bombing targets consisted of the U.N. General Assembly building, the New York FBI building, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, and the George Washington Bridge, according to evidence presented at trial.

Andrew McCarthy, the chief prosecutor of the case, said: "As was uniformly the case with witnesses presented in the extensive defense case, [Hamawy's] testimony, once cross-examination was over, did more to bolster the prosecution's proof of a jihadist terrorism conspiracy against the United States than to help the accused."

Hamawy's campaign told Fox News Digital that a past affiliation with Abdel-Rahman amounts to "guilt-by-association" shaming.

Hamawy is also attracting criticism for working in a Gaza hospital that served as a command center for Hamas.

In May 2024, he did a three-week tour of duty at Gaza’s European Hospital. When Hamawy returned, he told Rowan University's student newspaper, the Whit, in October: "I didn't see any guns in the hospital. There was no one that I could identify as a combatant. There were definitely no tunnels underground and no command base there."

One year later, in May 2025, Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attacks, was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in a tunnel directly under the emergency department of the hospital while meeting with other senior Hamas terrorists, many of whom also died.

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Amir Levy/Getty Images

The Times of Israel reported that Hamas also held hostages in the tunnel at some point.

Hamawy's connections to Hamas-related controversies do not end there. He received the endorsement of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose executive director, Nihad Awad, said he "was happy to see" Palestinians "breaking the siege" on October 7.

In April, Hamawy appeared on the far-left streamer Hasan Piker's podcast, where he discussed his desires to "abolish ICE" and "dismantle the DHS," while also attacking what he referred to as "the department of war crimes."

Jewish Insider recently published a detailed description of Hamawy's history of volunteering in Bosnia during the summer of 1994 with a nonprofit called the Benevolence International Foundation that aided Muslims in the region.

Hamawy had worked in the cities of Sarajevo and Zenica, the two cities in which Benevolence maintained its offices. In 2002, Bosnian and U.S. authorities raided those offices and allegedly found documents, correspondence, and materials linking Benevolence to al-Qaeda operations and financing.

Hamawy himself has not been charged with terrorism or accused by authorities of participating in terrorist activity.

In the November general election, Hamawy will face off against Republican Gregg Mele in what is considered a solidly Democratic district.

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