Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993 TAG: 9303180165
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
U.S. DEPORTS EXTREMIST MUSLIM
An extremist Muslim cleric who preaches at the same mosque where two suspects in the World Trade Center bombing worship was ordered deported from the United States on Wednesday.The action came as a federal grand jury in Manhattan returned indictments against the two suspects already in custody and charged in the blast: Mohammed Salameh and Nidal Ayyad, both 25.
The Feb. 26 blast, which shut down the World Trade Center for nearly three weeks, killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and did tens of millions of dollars in damage to the city economy. One of the buildings will reopen today when Gov. Mario Cuomo returns to his 57th-floor offices.
The deportation order against Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was unrelated to the blast. But Salameh and Ayyad both have worshiped at the Jersey City, N.J., mosque where he has preached.
Abdel-Rahman, 54, had come before U.S. Immigration Judge Daniel Meisner on Jan. 20 for a closed hearing requested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove the sheik from the country.
The immigration service said Abdel-Rahman did not disclose in 1991 that he is a polygamist and that he was convicted of falsifying a check in Egypt in 1987. Both are grounds for exclusion from the United States.
Abdel-Rahman left Egypt for the United States after his acquittal in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The cleric has been known to issue fatwas, or death orders, against people he considers to be infidels against Islam.
He has denied any involvement in the twin towers attack.
Authorities allege Salameh, of Jersey City, rented the van used to transport the explosive, while Ayyad, of Maplewood, N.J., was capable of building a bomb. Ayyad is a chemical engineer.
The suspects face life without parole if convicted.
The single-paragraph indictment shed no new light on a motive for the blast or possible links between the alleged bombers and Abdel-Rahman.
A third man, Ibrahim Elgabrowny, 42, also was indicted Wednesday on charges including obstruction of justice and fraud.
The latter charge stemmed from five phony passports found in his Brooklyn apartment, made out in the name of El Sayyid Nosair, the man acquitted of killing radical Rabbi Meir Kahane but serving 22 years on related charges. Nosair also worshiped at the Jersey City mosque where Abdel-Rahman preached.
All three suspects remain jailed without bail. Elgabrowny faces up to 17 years in jail if convicted on all five counts.
Keywords:
FATALITY