EXCLUSIVE: CIA Suicide Bomber Photo

Mother of 'Jordan bomber' says he was no extremist

"We hear the news about my son Humam Khalil Mohammed al-Balawi but I don't know if he is dead or not," Shanara Fadel al-Balawi, 64, told AFP.

"He prayed and read the Koran but was never an extremist. He never shared extremist views."

"My son was conscientious. He was a good student at a Jordanian public school," his mother said.

"He applied last year for an American visa to study in the United States, and even paid fees," she said, without being able to confirm if her son had been granted the visa.

"He told us he was going to Turkey to get his original diploma, in late February. But we realised he never went then to Turkey," she said

Balawi's Turkish wife told the NTV news channel that she did not believe her husband worked for any intelligence agency.

"My husband definitely cannot be an agent for the CIA or Jordan because he was a man who would not even leave the house. I do not believe my husband could have done this," Defne Bayrak said.

"He never told me of such a thing and I do not think that is the case."

Bayrak said that Balawi, whom she married nine years ago, did not go to Afghanistan, but went to Pakistan to pursue medical studies.

"He wanted to study to become a surgeon. We knew that he got himself a job when he could not sort out his study plans.

"We last spoke on the phone about one-and-a-half months ago. It was a normal conversation. He talked about coming to Turkey... He had told us to go to Turkey and that he would come soon," she said.

According to Balawi's mother, Bayrak and her son met while he was studying medicine in Turkey. The couple have two children, Laila and Lina.

They also lived in Jordan for a while where Balawi worked in a hospital in a Palestinian refugee camp and Bayrak translated books from Arabic into Turkish.