Militant Cleric Denies Knowing Bomb Suspects

Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, the militant Egyptian cleric whose New Jersey mosque was a site of worship for suspects accused in the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center, Thursday denied knowing any of the suspects, including one said to be his own driver and bodyguard.

In TV interviews from the Los Angeles area, where he is visiting for an undisclosed period, Abdul Rahman said he had immigrated to the United States “in order to attack” the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and that “it doesn’t stand to reason that I would like for the place in which I live to be unsafe.”

He also denounced the media for tying him to the bombing, which he said was at odds with Islamic principles.

Speaking during a live Cable News Network interview on Thursday, Abdul Rahman said the trade center bombing “shook me deeply. Islam does not condone and does not agree with attacks on public and private buildings and citizens. God does not like those who transgress.”

But in a taped interview on ABC-TV’s “Primetime Live,” he acknowledged that he advocates the assassination of Mubarak, just as he supported the assassination of Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat.

“Sheik, did President Anwar Sadat deserve to die?” ABC correspondent Chris Wallace asked.

“Yes,” Abdul Rahman answered. “And Mubarak deserves the same thing. . . . It is just an opinion I thought of expressing in view of what I expect from the Egyptian people.”

“And that is your personal opinion?” Wallace asked. “That Mubarak should be shot down in the street?”

“I said, the people will do that,” the sheik replied.

Asked by Wallace whether the murder of tourists visiting Egypt is legitimate, Abdul Rahman said: “Nobody ever said that the killing of tourists is permissible. But tourists should be polite and should respect Islamic traditions, and they should know that tourism is not only gambling and nightclubs and alcohol. What is being done is to try to stop tourism in order to embarrass the (Egyptian) government. . . .

“The attacks are not against the tourists but against the buses carrying the tourists in order to stop them. If they wanted to kill all the tourists, they would have done that, but this was not their aim.”

(On Tuesday, an explosion damaged five empty tourist buses parked outside the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. In earlier attacks, a few foreign tourists have been killed).

The U.S. government is seeking to deport Abdul Rahman on grounds that he did not disclose on his residence application that he was a polygamist and that he had been convicted of falsifying a check in Egypt in 1987.

He was reported earlier this week to be staying at the West Covina home of a self-described aide, Yousef M. Saleh. However, Wednesday night, he reportedly left Saleh’s house and moved to an undisclosed location.

Asked by CNN when he would return to New Jersey, he responded: “Whenever I please.”

The 55-year-old sheik, who is blind, wore dark glasses for both interviews. He spoke in Arabic, but the networks provided a simultaneous translation.

In both interviews, he denounced the news media for linking him to the bombing and denied accusations from terrorist experts that he is financed by the government of Iran.

“I did not come to defend myself, but to attack the American media because it is controlled, it is racist and it accuses the innocent,” he said on ABC.

“The American media does not link the man in Texas who claims to be Jesus with Christian priests; it does not link the crimes of Jews with the rabbis. So why does the American media link the Muslim suspects in the bombing with Islamic leaders and Islam?”

The sheik said he knows neither Mohammed A. Salameh, the 25-year-old Palestinian who rented the van that allegedly delivered the explosive device to the trade center, nor Mahmud Abouhalima, who authorities are seeking as the alleged mastermind of the bombing.

Investigators said Wednesday that Abouhalima had been Abdul Rahman’s driver and bodyguard.

“I don’t know him (Abouhalima), and I don’t know where he is, and I never had a car, so how can he drive me?,” the sheik said on CNN.

As for Salameh, he said: “I don’t know (him). . . . I am not obligated to verify everybody’s identity when they come to pray behind me.”

Muslims living in America “have a covenant to respect the (American) system,” Abdul Rahman said. “How can they harm the country they live in? They have been ordered to honor their covenant.

“I came as an immigrant to attack the Egyptian regime. Is it possible that I disrupted the peace of the place I came to? I should respect the system and take care of the security of the place.”

The U.S. Embassy in the Sudan granted the sheik permission to enter the United States two years ago.

Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.) on Thursday belittled suggestions that U.S. officials might have deliberately allowed the sheik to come to the United States because he had in some way helped U.S. efforts to support Afghan resistance fighters in their war against the Soviet Union.

Wilson, a member of the House Intelligence Committee who for years was the strongest congressional patron of the U.S. support for the Afghan resistance movement, said if that were the case, “I think I’d have known it. I never heard of him. I am absolutely certain he did not do any substantial fund raising (for the Afghan resistance.)”

Still, Wilson said he was unable to explain how the sheik was able to get approval to come to the United States. “It is beyond me,” he said. “It is so bizarre.”

In New York, meanwhile, a federal judge Thursday denied a defense request to grant bail for Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, one of three men arrested in the days following the explosion.

Defense attorney William Kunstler argued that Elgabrowny, who was indicted a day earlier on federal charges of obstruction of justice and assaulting federal officers, was not accused of any involvement in the Feb. 26 bombing and thus should be released pending trial on these “minor felonies.”

Authorities had arrested Elgabrowny on March 4 on grounds that he tried to prevent a search of his home in Brooklyn, an address that was used by Salameh, the chief suspect in the bombing, when he presented his New York driver’s license to rent the van.

Kunstler said that although Elgabrowny, 42, knew Salameh, he had no participation in the crime, is a devoted father and husband and had friends and relatives willing to pledge their limited resources toward his bail.

But U.S. District Judge John E. Sprizzo agreed with prosecutors that Elgabrowny could try to flee the country.

Kunstler replied that he would appeal the no-bail decision to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a process that could take several days.

Times staff writers Jim Mann and Robert L. Jackson in New York contributed to this story.