
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 5, 1993                   TAG: 9307050070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

EGYPT WANTS SUSPECT

At Egypt's request, the United States on Sunday began extradition proceedings against Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Muslim cleric whose followers have been linked to the World Trade Center bombing and an alleged plot to blow up the United Nations building.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa made the request Sunday in Cairo to U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Robert H. Pelletreau.

Acknowledging that the extradition process was under way, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press": "We will process the request in the normal way . . . and we will go about it in a prompt way. It's a procedure, though, that could take some time."

U.S. officials say the complex legal process could take years. Abdel-Rahman has the right to make many appeals, both of the extradition and of the outcome of a deportation case pending against him.

His attorney, Abdel Halim Mandour, has said the cleric does not wish to return to Egypt in the current climate of political tension and will seek to block extradition.

The 55-year-old blind cleric was already in custody in a New York federal prison, having surrendered to immigration officials Friday night after a 20-hour standoff at a Brooklyn mosque.

The extradition request was a significant turnaround for the Egyptian government, which had not before sought Abdel-Rahman's return despite a case against him stemming from a 1989 riot near his hometown of El Faiyun.

Abdel-Rahman and others are accused of the attempted murder of two police officers and inciting violence.

Many Egyptian officials have said they fear that the return of the popular cleric could spark outbreaks of violence and demonstrations in the country, which already has seen more than 150 deaths in the past year in the conflict between Islamic militants and national security forces.

But on Saturday, a judge in the El Faiyun case ordered Abdel-Rahman returned to face trial.

Abdel-Rahman has been preaching at mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City, N.J.

He has not been accused of any violent crime in the United States, but at least a dozen of his followers have been arrested in connection with the February bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six people, and an alleged conspiracy to assassinate government officials and bomb several government sites in New York.

by CNB