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

DATE: TUESDAY, July 13, 1993                   TAG: 9307130100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CIA OFFICIAL'S ERROR LET MUSLIM CLERIC ENTER U.S., STATE DEPARTMENT FINDS

A CIA officer serving in Sudan approved the permit for Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman to enter the United States in 1990, not knowing the Egyptian cleric was ineligible because of alleged ties with terrorists, a U.S. official says.

The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the CIA officer approved Abdel-Rahman's tourist visa request after an embassy consular clerk assured him that the sheik's name was not on a list of undesirable aliens.

The question of how the sheik entered this country arose after some of his followers were arrested in connection with the February World Trade Center bombing, and an alleged plot thwarted last month by the FBI to blow up New York City landmarks.

The findings are contained in a classified report by the State Department's inspector general, assisted by the CIA's inspector general, said the official, who is familiar with the report.

The investigation found that a series of bureaucratic mistakes allowed Abdel-Rahman to repeatedly skirt State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service controls, said Rep. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, one of several lawmakers briefed on the report. Parts of the report will be made public.

The findings are bound to bolster speculation in the Arab world that the CIA arranged for Abdel-Rahman to get into the United States because he had helped the agency recruit Afghan rebels to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The CIA and other government agencies firmly deny any connection with Abdel-Rahman. The official who spoke of the report's findings noted that Abdel-Rahman did not travel to Pakistan - the staging point for the Afghan rebels fighting in neighboring Afghanistan - until 1990, after the Soviets had pulled out.

The inspector general's investigation found that the CIA officer at the embassy in Khartoum did not recognize Abdel-Rahman's name, said the official, even though the sheik was known to U.S. counter-terrorism officials because of his support of Muslim radicals in Egypt.

The Egyptian cleric, who is blind, was tried and acquitted in connection with the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and was charged with inciting a 1989 riot in Egypt.

Because of these events and other information, Abdel-Rahman was in 1987 placed on a list of 2.7 million foreigners ineligible for entry into the United States.

The Sudanese consular clerk who handled Abdel-Rahman's visa application assured the CIA officer that he had checked the name against the so-called watchlist - but he hadn't, the investigators found.

The clerk was reprimanded but wasn't disciplined further because of his honorable employment record, said another official.

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by CNB