ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 25, 1997 TAG: 9702250103
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP
SOURCE: Associated Press
FAMILY MEMBERS of Ali Hassan Abu Kamal said they don't know how he lost the $300,000.
An educated man who favored expensive suits, the English teacher felt out of place in the impoverished Gaza Strip, and dreamed of someday emigrating to the United States.
So he saved for a lifetime, tutored anyone who could pay him, suffered indignity and even injury in his harsh land, and slowly amassed several hundred thousand dollars.
In December, he tried to make his dream come true, flying to the United States with his money.
And then, somehow, $300,000 was gone.
He called his wife on Sunday. No, he told her, he could not pay his son's tuition.
Then he took the elevator to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, muttered something about Egypt, and opened fire with a .380 Beretta automatic handgun on the outdoor deck.
Family members said Monday that they didn't know how Ali Hassan Abu Kamal lost his life savings, but that the loss appeared to have made something snap in the stern teacher with a flash of temper.
``I think a man that age cannot accept that he loses more than $300,000 after 50 years of work,'' son-in-law Marwan Abu Samra said.
In conservative Gaza, Abu Kamal was considered a flamboyant man. He felt more comfortable conversing in English - he spoke it without any trace of an accent - than in his native Arabic.
Abu Kamal, dapper with a salt-and-pepper moustache, often felt out of place in impoverished, provincial Gaza City.
``It was his dream to live in the States because he felt he wanted to be in a place where people would understand him,'' his son-in-law said.
In 1992, he was abducted by Islamic militant vigilantes who broke his legs and an arm in several days of severe beatings. In graffiti painted on walls, they accused him of smoking hashish and drinking alcohol in violation of religious commandments.
Abu Kamal was a teacher for some 50 years, both at Gaza City schools and as a private tutor who over the years gave remedial classes to hundreds of sons and daughters of well-to-do Gazans.
He was known as the best English tutor in Gaza, a reputation that enabled him to charge $15 per hour - more than twice the going rate.
On Christmas Eve, Abu Kamal flew to the United States. He had told his wife, Amineh, his four daughters and two sons that he wanted to invest his money in America and eventually move the family there, Abu Samra said.
He first went to Miami, and on Jan. 11 checked into the low-budget River Oaks Motel in Melbourne, Fla., renting a one-bedroom efficiency with TV, stove and refrigerator for $150 a week.
Motel owner Gary Gregory said he paid on time on each of the three weeks he was there, using $100 bills.
Abu Kamal sometimes would stand outside his door, nude, until Gregory could persuade him to go back inside. ``I told him, Papa, you can't do that. That's not cool,'' Gregory said.
After Abu Kamal left, Gregory said he found needles - ``like for insulin'' - in the refrigerator. A man who had visited Abu Kamal during his stay and ``who wouldn't look you in the eye'' came back and picked up the needles, Gregory said.
Gregory said Abu Kamal was trying to establish Florida residency at the motel to buy a gun, which he did on Feb. 4 before moving to New York City.
On Sunday, Abu Kamal called home. He told his wife he was having financial problems and could not send tuition money to a son studying civil engineering in Russia. He wouldn't explain what kind of financial problems.
After news reports named Abu Kamal as the Empire State Building shooter Sunday evening, his relatives called Abu Kamal's main contact in the United States, who told them Abu Kamal had lost more than $300,000. He would not tell them how, Abu Samra said.
On Monday, outside Abu Kamal's one-story home in the seaside Rimal district of Gaza City, men erected a wooden frame for a blue-and-white mourning tent designed to hold about 150 chairs.
``I'm in shock. I can't believe my father carried out this act,'' said Abu Kamal's daughter, Linda Abu Samra.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Wesam Abu Kamal, 12, holds a picture of his fatherby CNBwho killed one man, injured six, and then shot himself.