Christopher Paul | |
|---|---|
| Born | Paul Kenyatta Laws March 1, 1964 (age 60) |
| Other names | Abdulmalek Kenyatta Abdul Malek Alex Karagezyan |
| Education | Thomas Worthington High School |
| Alma mater | Columbus State Community College |
| Occupation | al Qaeda terrorist |
Christopher Paul (aka Paul Kenyatta Laws, Abdulmalek Kenyatta) is an American al-Qaeda militant, who has pleaded guilty to acts of terrorism.
Born Paul Kenyatta Laws, he changed his name to Alex Karagezyan in 1989, but then to Christopher Paul in 1994. [1] [2] [3] Additional names have included Abdul Malek. [4] Paul is an American citizen, resident of the Columbus, Ohio, area, where he was born. He grew up in suburban Worthington, Ohio. [5]
He attended Thomas Worthington High School. [5] He then became a student at Columbus State Community College from 1988 to 1990. [5] It was during this period that he converted to Islam, changing his name to Abdulmalek Kenyatta. [5] [6] From 1990 and 1994, he was taking training at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan learning hand-to-hand combat and the use of weapons including rocket-propelled grenades. He also traveled to a number of countries, including Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia, before returning to Columbus in 1994 and changing his name to Christopher Paul. [5] Paul took classes at Columbus State for another 4 years, and was granted an associate degree in 1998. [5] He attended the Omar Ibnelkhattab Mosque at 580 Riverview Dr. in Columbus. [5]
He received training from al-Qaeda in the early 1990s in Pakistan and Afghanistan. [7] [3]
He fought on behalf of Islamist militant groups in Bosnia and Afghanistan in the early 1990s. [8] In Afghanistan, he is reported to have stayed in the Beit ur Salam guesthouse, a safe house reserved exclusively for graduates of Al Qaeda training camps.
Then in 1999, he was in Germany training terrorists in a local Islamist cell how to build car bombs and other explosive devices to blow up Americans vacationing in Europe. [8] He was also alleged, in August 2002, to have met two other men in a suburban Columbus coffee house where they discussed terrorist attacks. The other two men were convicted of separate acts: Nuradin Abdi for a plot to blow up an Ohio shopping mall (of which Paul was one of the conspirators), and Iyman Faris (a Pakistani immigrant) for a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. [9] [10] [11]
Paul was indicted on April 12, 2007, on the following charges: conspiring to support terrorists, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and providing support to terrorists. He was charged with planning to set off bombs in Europe and the United States. [12] He initially pleaded not guilty. [13] In 2008, he pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb targets in Europe and the United States in a plea deal to obtain a lighter sentence. [12] [14] According to public data search, he is no longer in prison as of May 22, 2024. [15]