美国国家公共电台 NPR Omar Abdel-Rahman, Radical Cleric Connected To 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, Dies

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LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The extremist Muslim cleric known as The Blind Sheikh has died in a U.S. prison. NPR's Cory Turner reports on the man who was convicted two decades ago of conspiring¹ to wage a war of urban terrorism against the United States.

CORY TURNER, BYLINE²: Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman died at 5:40 Saturday morning at a federal prison complex in North Carolina. The facility's acting³ executive assistant, Kenneth McCoy, said Abdel-Rahman was 78 years old and had died after a long struggle with coronary artery⁴ disease and diabetes⁵, which had caused his blindness as a child.

Abdel-Rahman was born in Egypt and came to the U.S. in the early 1990s, preaching a radical⁶, violent vision of Islam in and around New York City. After the February 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people and injured more than a thousand, Abdel-Rahman spoke⁷ to reporters with the help of a translator. Here's a clip from The Associated Press.

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UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: He says, I am - I said, I condemn⁸ any act that will hurt their national security or the security of America or the Americans.

TURNER: But the FBI was able to build a conspiracy⁹ case against Abdel-Rahman after one of his known associates turned informant. Four months after the Trade Center attack, Abdel-Rahman was arrested and charged with attempting to orchestrate an ambitious series of terror attacks on New York City landmarks¹⁰. Among the targets were the George Washington Bridge, the United Nations headquarters and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. Abdel-Rahman was convicted of seditious conspiracy, guilty on 48 of 50 charges, and sentenced to life in U.S. prison. Cory Turner, NPR News, Washington.