Omar Abdel Rahman, Blind Cleric Found Guilty of Plot to Wage ‘War of Urban Terrorism,’ Dies at 78
18, 2017
Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Islamic cleric whose fulminating sermons inspired violent fundamentalist movements in Egypt and, an American court found,
a 1993 plot for a bombing rampage in New York, died on Saturday at a federal prison near Raleigh, N.C., where he was serving a life sentence.
Those bombings never happened, but the intent of the conspiracy, prosecutors said, was to destroy New York landmarks, kill hundreds of people
and force the United States to abandon its support for Israel and Egypt.
In 1990, as he fled from Egypt, Mr. Abdel Rahman moved to the United States, bringing his anti-American preaching
and his campaign against the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City.
They depicted the bombing as part of a plot that included the killing of a militant rabbi in 1990 and the conspiracy to blow up New York landmarks.
On July 18, 1990, he traveled to New York, carrying a visa granted by the United States consulate in Sudan.
Before coming to the United States, Mr. Abdel Rahman was put on trial in Egypt.
In Mr. Abdel Rahman’s trial, prosecutors described the World Trade Center attack as part of a broader conspiracy involving the blind cleric.