Suspect in Embassy Blasts Is Devout, Relatives Say

For four years, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, also known as Sadik Howaida and internationally suspected as the chief bomber of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, quietly plied his fishing trade along the Indian Ocean coast in eastern Africa.

He would buy fish in this tourist town of 500,000 and sell them farther south in Mombasa, relatives of his wife said Saturday during an interview that revealed details of the private life of a previously unknown man who has suddenly become a character in a global drama.

To the few family members who know him, he is a bright, intense 34-year-old with an extraordinarily devout faith in the Muslim religion. He never breaks the religious regimen of five daily prayers, they say, and he is quick to scold others who run afoul of the Koran.

But Hassan Omar Hassan, 50, an uncle of Odeh’s wife, and Miriam Seif, 35, a sister-in-law, say they never saw him show interest in anything outside the mosque or his fishing business--not politics, not newspapers, not even America--and they never heard him mention the now-dreaded name of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire whom Odeh and two others have reportedly implicated as the financier of the bombing in Nairobi that killed more than 260 people and injured more than 5,000.

That is why Seif still insists Odeh is not the mastermind of the Nairobi bombing or of the near-simultaneous blast at the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

“He is too religious,” she said.

As for Hassan, at first he was shocked and disbelieving. But after thinking about how little he knows about Odeh’s history--especially the young man’s life in Jordan before he entered their world in 1994 as a suitor for the hand of his 22-year-old niece, Nassim Amina Mohammed--Hassan is not so sure.

Odeh is suspected of making the bombs and plotting with several others to blow up the American embassies. Local news reports say he used his fishing business as a cover for his mission. The Daily Nation, a Nairobi newspaper, has reported that police sources say Odeh and two others--Khalid Salim of Yemen and Abdallah Nacha of Lebanon--have confessed and said that Bin Laden bankrolled the bombing and their fishing business cover.

Hassan and Seif, however, say that during the entire four years they knew him, Odeh never gave the slightest hint that he knew Bin Laden.

Although distinctly middle-class, Hassan and his family live in a clean, comfortable two-story home situated in the midst of a poverty-stricken area characterized by thatched-roof houses, rundown shops, open garbage dumps and bumpy roads that frequently scrape at the underside of a passing vehicle.

Hassan is a driver for the Kenyan Labor Department, and Seif, who proudly announces that “I am a working woman,” is a government messenger. Hassan owns the house, and several other relatives live with him. Hassan had been taking care of Amina for several years before her marriage, but he became reticent Saturday when the conversation turned to her parents, simply saying her mother is sick.

Odeh came into their lives in July 1994. An old man, a postal worker whose daughter knew Amina in school, brought Odeh to Hassan’s home and said his friend was looking for a wife. The postal worker said Odeh wanted to marry Amina, even though they had never met.

Hassan had some initial doubts. Odeh would say nothing about his parents or his background.

There have been reports that Odeh joined the Palestine Liberation Organization while studying architecture in Jordan and that, in 1990, he fought alongside the Muslims in Afghanistan against the Communist government.

But the Hassan family members knew nothing of this background and seemed to believe there was nothing unusual about the match.

“You can marry someone from anywhere, as long as they are Muslim,” Seif explained.

Hassan said he also found nothing unusual about the arrangement. He thought about it for a couple of weeks, checked with Amina and then gave his consent to the marriage.

“We realized Odeh was very religious,” he said through an interpreter. “Amina also is very religious. She did not go to discos. She had kept her virginity, so after he sought my consent, we realized these two religious people should stay together.”

The couple were married in a ceremony at Hassan’s house Oct. 24, 1994. The next day, they moved to Mombasa, where they rented a house and Odeh started his fishing business.

Hassan described Odeh as a serious, slender man of average height who wears eyeglasses, a full beard with sideburns and a thin mustache.

Over the years, Hassan said, he never saw Odeh with friends, and “he would never watch television or videos.” When Odeh visited Malindi, he left the house only to go to the mosque or to work.

Life was routine until February of this year, when Odeh announced that he could no longer afford the rent in Mombasa. By this time, he and Amina had a baby boy.

Odeh and Amina moved up the coast from Malindi to Lamu, where Hassan allowed them to live in a house that he owned. Odeh never found another job, but Amina was teaching Islam in a school.

Then, early this month, they returned to Mombasa. Hassan never saw Odeh after that. Aug. 7 is the day the terrorists struck in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

A week later, authorities arrested a man whose name was widely reported as Mohammed Sadik Howaida. Not until the following week, when reports emerged that the name was an alias for Odeh, did Hassan know that a terrorist might have been in his home and a part of his family.

He rushed to Mombasa looking for Amina, but neighbors told him the FBI and Kenyan police had taken her to Nairobi.

He says the authorities tell him that she is not under arrest, she is staying in an undisclosed hotel and is helping them with their investigation.