Intel man pleads guilty to Taliban terror charges

A former Intel engineer has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and attempting to travel to Afghanistan to enlist with the Taliban to aid their fight against invading US and allied forces.

Maher "Mike" Mofeid Hawash, 38, faces between seven and 10 years in federal prison after admitting that he travelled to China with five suspected terrorists and attempted to enter Afghanistan in order to fight against the US in 2001, according to the guilty plea.

The admission will come as a bitter blow to activists including his former boss at Intel who had set up a campaign pleading his innocence and ridiculing what they saw as an "absurd" mistake.

In the 13-page plea agreement released on Wednesday afternoon, Hawash admitted to the charges brought against him by the Justice Department in April.

The plea agreement, which Hawash signed, said: "Hawash and others in the group were prepared to take up arms as martyrs if necessary to defend the Taliban government in Afghanistan."

The Justice Department said it expects sentencing to occur next year after the trials of the remaining defendants are complete. The sentence, which will be set by US District Judge Robert Jones, is compounded because the offence took place when the US was at war.

After Hawash was arrested in March and detained for weeks without any charges being filed against him, his case became something of a cause célèbre online. His friends and former boss at Intel set up the FreeMikeHawash.org website and said in response to the criminal charges: "Mike's friends and those who know him think the idea that Mike would have fought for the Taliban or travelled to Afghanistan is absurd. Mike's concerns were for his family in America, his family in Palestine and for his faith." Supporters even held rallies in front of the courthouse.

As a lead engineer on Intel's Multimedia Extensions, or MMX, software team, Hawash worked on the MMX technology emulator and MPEG decoders.

The plea agreement also sets out a $250,000 fine and requires Hawash to co-operate with the government in criminal prosecutions and military tribunals, including legal action against the suspects being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The plea states that Hawash travelled with defendants Patrice Ford, Ahmed Bilal and Muhammad Bilal to China in an attempt to enter Pakistan and then travelled to Afghanistan, but the four men were unsuccessful in obtaining a visa for Pakistan.

Hawash, who was born in 1964 in Nablus, in the then-Jordainian-controlled West Bank, is a naturalised US citizen. He had lived in Hillsboro, Oregon, with his wife and three children.

Declan McCullagh writes for News.com