Asha? I don't think so!

Mohammad Asha ..... University of Jordan- Faculty of Medicine (1998-2004)
Yours Sincerely ........... University of Jordan- Faculty of Medicine (1996-2002)

In case you don't know, the faculty of medicine is a really small one, and between the 4th and 6th year students spend all of their time at the University Hospital and less often at other hospitals like Al-Basheer, so many students in these years know each other's faces or names. Although I could not remember this guy despite the good ten minutes I spent staring at my monitor trying to remember him, I'm certain that I ran across him in some hallway or perhaps tried to bypass him in the long standing line at the hospital's cafeteria.

The reason I cannot remember him specifically is that his face looks very familiar. It's the commonest face you encounter in any faculty in Jordan. His beard (according to previous pictures) was not as thick, and that makes him look like 30-40% of male students at the JU.

There are a few reasons why I believe this doc might be innocent.

First, he graduated from the Jubilee school. I'm familiar with this school since I was accepted there in 1994 but was discouraged from joining it by my parents because it was brand new and didn't have a GCE program. However, the school was unique in the way it enlightened its students about other cultures. Its students not only scored well in subsequent years but also were able to study abroad and intermingle with people from other countries extremely well.

Another thing worth-mentioning: It's not only that his father said in an emotional interview with a fox news reporter today that his accused son missed many Fridays prayers and was more willing to read Gray's Anatomy than the Quran, but it's because the Jordanian intelligence mentioned that he had clean records prior to leaving Jordan.

We all know it's not easy easy to have a "clean record" in Jordanian intelligence. They know everything. We know very well that there "Mokhabart" listening to and reading everything any Jordanian says or writes down. They know each person who belong to any Islamist movement inside the university, they know who walks in demonstrations and who organizes them and they know who's friends with who and who are the students who pray in the small prayers places scattered around the university. You might argue whether or not all of this is necessary but my point is that if Asha was really involved with something like Al Qaeda or any militant group he can never have a clean record in the Jordanian intelligence.

Things might have changed after he left to the UK, and we know how fanatic some Islamic movements are there, but their target is usually very young Muslim men who have many financial and/or social problems, and that doesn't apply to Asha. The salaries they give to medical residents there are way better than those they give to residents in the US.

I went through the same life that this person went through for many years, and we had different students/doctors graduating from our class. Yes some were very religious , or even supported Hamas or Hizbullah but I can't buy it that someone would be seriously involved in a militant group or planning an attack on civilians. Our past and present makes it almost impossible for anyone to think of something other than medicine.

Other than beard and the wife I feel I have a few things common with this guy, just like hundreds of other Jordanian doctors who live outside Jordan. We went through the pain of medical school, the the pain of doing it in Jordan which is not a pleasant experience, then going through the process of doing exams and later leaving our homes to focus on starting new lives and all of that making it difficult for me to buy the story of "Doctor Evil". Once in medicine you'll always stay in medicine and, unfortunately, you'd suck in anything else, and that makes it unlikely that Asha had planned for all of this.