Criticism of Rashad Khalifa

It is amazing to discover that a once colleague and ex Egyptian country-man Rashad Khalifa, self-proclaimed "a Messenger of Covenant ", had fooled many naive people. I personally knew Khalifa since we both were Egyptian graduate students of agricultural sciences in USA, 1959-66 in both Arizona and California; in Cairo 1966-68 as researchers at both the Ministry of Agriculture and Ein-Shams University; in Tripoli, Libya, 1975-76, as a professor at Triploi University( myself) and researcher at the Arab Institute for Development (Khalifa).

Khalifa was a master of deception, lying and exploitation all his life. He claimed to be a chemist while the official certificates for Bsc, from Ein-Shams Univ, Cairo, Msc from Univ of Arizona , Tucson, and PhD from Univ of California, Riverside, all state he was an agriculturist-horticulturist, with a specialty in plant physiology, as myself. He defected from Egypt 1968 under the pretext to accompany his American wife for a family visit but never returned to fulfill obligations toward our country as preconditioned within the terms of our government scholarship to study abroad. While in Libya, he was contracted as a self-claimed chemist to turn Libya into a protein-rich and exporter country by converting its vast oil resources to animal protein. He never did that, while he abused the good-well of the Libyans delivering TV speeches on ISLAM!

Suddenly, Khalifa the false chemist turned into a Muslim scholar/theologian deciphering a mysterious divine code of Qur'an based on absurd numerical calculations. He fooled some Muslim countries, particularly Libya and Saudi Arabia from which he received huge amount of money. Khalifa was a typical Jim Jones type misleading and abusing naive followers.

A Tucson man was ordered yesterday to stand trial on charges of sexual assault, sexual abuse and sexual contact with a minor, after a 16-year-old-girl testified that he raped her while supposedly recruiting her for a United Nations research project.

After listening to the alleged victim and a police detective during three days of testimony, Justice of the Peace James R. West ruled that there was probable cause to hold Rashad A. Khalifa, 43, for trial on the three charges.

According to the girl, Khalifa recruited her to do research on the aura, a luminous radiation that supposedly surrounds the body, and met her Sept. 3 at an East Side office for that purpose.

The girl said Khalifa asked her to remove her clothing so that it wouldn't interfere with her aura and after massaging several parts of her body, he proceeded to have sexual relations with her.

The girl admitted to defence attorney David S. Hoffman that she did not try to leave, and explained that she was confused and scared.

During the hearing, Hoffman also said that there was no physical evidence of intercourse found when the girl was taken to a hospital for an examination.

But West said he found sufficient evidence in the fact that Khalifa admitted to the police that he had manipulated the girl's breasts during his research and in circumstances under which Khalifa obtained the office.

Police Detective Michael D. Garigan told West that his investigation showed that Khalifa got the key to the office from the building manager just a few days earlier, by saying he wished to show it to friends interested in office space while the manager was out of town.

Deputy County Attorney John W. Dickinson said later that investigators are trying to locate other possible subjects who may have been recruited.