Egyptian plotter of terror dies in US jail

WASHINGTON // Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian-born cleric linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, yesterday died of natural causes in a US prison, the justice department said. He was 78. Abdel Rahman, known as the blind sheikh, was serving a life sentence on several terrorism- related charges at a federal medical centre in Butner, North Carolina. He had suffered for many years from diabetes and coronary artery disease, authorities said.

Rahman was viewed as an extremist spiritual leader even after his conviction in 1995 for conspiring to bomb New York landmarks, including the United Nations, and assassinate the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Abdel Rahman led the militant Al Gamaa Al Islamiya group in Egypt before emigrating to the United States.