- Omar Abdel-Rahman
-
Omar Abdel-Rahman 
Born May 3, 1938
Al Gammaliyyah, Dakahlia Governorate, EgyptConviction(s) Seditious conspiracy Penalty Life imprisonment Status Incarcerated at FMC Butner Medical Center Spouse Aisha Hassan Gouda
A. ZohdiChildren 10 Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (Arabic: عمر عبد الرحمن, ‘Umar ‘Abd ar-Raḥman; born 3 May 1938), commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", is a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy,[1] which requires only that a crime be planned, not that it necessarily be attempted. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the World Trade Center 1993 bombings.
Abdel-Rahman was accused of being the leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (also known as "The Islamic Group"), a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Egyptian governments. The group is responsible for many acts of violence, including the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians were killed.
Contents
Youth
Abdel-Rahman was born in the city of Al Gammaliyyah, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt, in 1938. He lost his eyesight at a young age due to childhood diabetes. He studied a Braille version of the Qur'an as a child and developed an interest in the works of the Islamic purists Ibn Taymiyah and Sayyid Qutb. After graduating in Qur'anic studies from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Egyptian government imprisoned him because he was an opponent of the regime. Abdel-Rahman became one of the most prominent and outspoken Muslim clerics to denounce Egypt’s secularism.
Family
Omar has two wives who have borne him 10 children: Aisha Hassan Gouda (7 sons), and A. Zohdi (3 children).[2] His sons include Abdullah, Ahmed, Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman and Asim Abdulrahman.[3]
Prison in Egypt
During the 1970s, Abdel-Rahman developed close ties with two of Egypt’s most militant organizations, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya ("The Islamic Group"). By the 1980s, he had emerged as the leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, although he was still revered by followers of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which at the time was being led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, later to become an Al Qaeda principal. Abdel-Rahman spent three years in Egyptian jails where he was tortured[citation needed] as he awaited trial on charges of issuing a fatwa resulting in the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat by Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Afghan mujaheddin
Although Abdel-Rahman was not convicted of conspiracy in the Sadat assassination, he was expelled from Egypt following his acquittal. He made his way to Afghanistan in the mid-1980s where he contacted his former professor, Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) along with Osama bin Laden. Rahman built a strong rapport with bin Laden during the Afghan war against the Soviets, and following Azzam’s murder in 1989 Rahman assumed control of the international jihadists arm of MAK/Al Qaeda.[citation needed]
In July 1990, Abdel-Rahman went to New York City to gain control of MAK’s financial and organizational infrastructure in the United States.
Activities in the US
“ If those who have the right to have something are terrorists, then we are terrorists, and we welcome being terrorists ... the Quran makes it, terrorism, among the means to perform jihad in the sake of Allah, which is to terrorise the enemies of God ” —Omar Abdel-Rahman, 1993[4]
Abdel-Rahman was issued a tourist visa to visit the U.S. despite his name being listed on a US State Department terrorist watch list. Rahman entered the United States, in July 1990, via Saudi Arabia, Peshawar, and Sudan.
He traveled widely in the United States and Canada. Despite the U.S. support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, Abdel-Rahman was deeply anti-American and spoke out against it, safe in the knowledge that he was speaking Arabic and unmonitored by any law enforcement agency. He issued a fatwa in America that declared lawful the robbing of banks and killing of Jews in America. His sermons condemned Americans as the "descendants of apes and pigs who have been feeding from the dining tables of the Zionists, Communists, and colonialists".[5] He called on Muslims to assail the West, "cut the transportation of their countries, tear it apart, destroy their economy, burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land".[6]
Preaching at three mosques in the New York City area, Abdel-Rahman was soon surrounded by a core group of devoted followers that included persons who became responsible for the World Trade Center 1993 bombings. One of Rahman's followers, El Sayyid Nosair, was linked to the assassination of Israeli nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League. He was subsequently acquitted of murder but convicted on gun possession charges.
Steven Emerson's 1994 television documentary Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America contains a video of Abdel-Rahman in Detroit calling for jihad against the "infidel".[7]
Nosair later stood trial as a co-conspirator of Rahman. Both men received life sentences for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, conspiracy to use explosives against New York landmarks, and plotting to assassinate U.S. politicians. Nosair was convicted of nine counts, including seditious conspiracy, murder of Kahane in aid of racketeering, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder of a postal police officer, use of a firearm in a murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a murder, use of a firearm in an attempted murder, and possession of a firearm, and received life plus 15 years of imprisonment.[8] Nosair's relatives obtained funds to pay for Nosair's defense from Osama bin Laden.[9]
Arrest and conviction
See also: New York City landmark bomb plotAfter the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993, the FBI began to investigate Rahman and his followers more closely. With the assistance of an Egyptian informant wearing a listening device, the FBI managed to record Rahman issuing a fatwa encouraging acts of violence against US civilian targets, particularly in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area.[not in citation given] The most startling plan, the government charged, was to set off five bombs in 10 minutes, blowing up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and a federal building housing the FBI.[not in citation given] Government prosecutors showed videotapes of defendants mixing bomb ingredients in a garage before their arrest in 1993.[not in citation given] Rahman was arrested on 24 June 1993, along with nine of his followers.[10] On 1 October 1995, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy, and in 1996 was sentenced to life in prison.[11]
Rahman, with the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID# 34892-054, is located in Butner Federal Medical Center.[12]
Legacy
Abdel-Rahman’s imprisonment has become a rallying point for Islamic militants around the world, including Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. In 1997, members of his group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya conducted two attacks against European visitors to Egypt, including the massacre of 58 tourists at Deir el-Bahri in Luxor. In addition to killing women and children, the attackers mutilated a number of bodies and distributed leaflets throughout the scene demanding Rahman’s release.[citation needed]
In 2005, members of Rahman’s legal team, including lawyer Lynne Stewart, were convicted of facilitating communication between the imprisoned Sheikh and members of the terrorist organization Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya in Egypt.
See also
References
- ^ Perez, Richard (1995-10-02). "THE TERROR CONSPIRACY - THE CHARGES - THE TERROR CONSPIRACY - THE CHARGES - A Gamble Pays Off as the Prosecution Uses an Obscure 19th-Century Law - NYTimes.com". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E3DC1539F931A35753C1A963958260. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "Omar Abdel-Rahman". Nndb.com. http://www.nndb.com/people/923/000099626/. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ Sued Deutsche, In der Trutzburg des sanften Scheichs, 23 September 2001
- ^ Benjamin, Daniel & Steven Simon. "The Age of Sacred Terror", 2002
- ^ Kohlmann, Evan F., Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe, Berg Publishers, 25 November 2004, p.26
- ^ Kohlmann, Evan F., Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe, p.185
- ^ Goodman, Walter (1994-11-21). "Goodman, Walter, "Television Review; In 'Jihad in America,' Food for Uneasiness," ''The New York Times'', 21 November 1994, accessed 21 January 2010". Nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/21/arts/television-review-in-jihad-in-america-food-for-uneasiness.html?pagewanted=1. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al.: 93-CR-181-KTD". http://www.tkb.org/CaseHome.jsp?caseid=332.
- ^ Smith, Greg B. (9 October 2002). "Bin Laden bankrolled Kahane killer defense". New York Daily News.
- ^ "Sedition – Further Readings". Law.jrank.org. http://law.jrank.org/pages/10113/Sedition.html. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "Terrorism in the United States". Fas.org. http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/fbi_terror95/terrorin.htm#anchoNewYork. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "Omar Ahmad Rahman." Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved on May 21, 2010.
Further reading
- Gunaratna, R. 2002 ‘Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror’. Scribe Publications: Carlton.
- Lance, P. 2003 ‘1000 Years For Revenge: International Terrorism and The FBI’. HarperCollins: New York
External links
- Omar Abdel-Rahman collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Paul DeRienzo's jail house interview with Rahman, September 1994
- Civil rights attorney convicted in terror trial, CNN, February 14, 2005
- Bin Laden’s 1996 Fatwa PBS.Org
- Smuggling The Sheikh's Messages Smoking Gun archive.
- Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman (The Blind Sheikh) Releases Letter from Prison Analysis from the SITE Institute.
- MIPT Biography
Categories:- 1938 births
- Living people
- Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
- Blind people
- Egyptian emigrants to the United States
- Egyptian Muslims
- Egyptian people imprisoned abroad
- Egyptian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
- Egyptian torture victims
- Muslim activists
- People from Dakahlia Governorate
- Perpetrators of religiously motivated violence in the United States
- Prisoners at ADX Florence
- Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government
- Terrorism in Egypt
- Al-Azhar University alumni
- People from New York City
- People from Brooklyn
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