Hany Kiareldeen came to New Jersey from his native Gaza in1990 to study English in college. He enrolled in school but leftin 1993 after he got married. Since then, he fathered a daughter,got divorced and remarried, ultimately making a home with hissecond wife and stepson in Bloomfield while working in anelectronics store.

But his life lost all semblance of normalcy on March 27,1998, when the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Servicearrested him for having overstayed his student visa.