Egypt Retries Blind Cleric in Absentia on Old Charge

Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, who rails against Egypt’s government from pulpits in the United States, went on trial in absentia Tuesday with 48 other Muslim militants on charges they were acquitted of three years ago.

Egypt also accuses Abdul Rahman of instigating escalating violence by Muslim extremists against police and foreign tourists. The unrest has killed more than 150 people in the last 16 months.

Police killed a suspected Muslim extremist and arrested 51 others in Cairo as the retrial began in a heavily guarded courthouse south of the capital.

Abdul Rahman has been in self-exile in the United States for more than three years. Suspects in the World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured more than 1,000 on Feb. 26, worshiped at mosques in New Jersey and New York where the blind cleric preaches.

“This is part of the government’s battle against the Islamic trend,” said Muntasser Zayyat, a lawyer for Abdul Rahman. “They are targeting Sheik Omar to limit his movement and stop him from struggling against the Egyptian regime.”

The sheik and 48 co-defendants previously were acquitted on charges that they illegally demonstrated against the government, carried illegal weapons and tried to kill police.

A different court is retrying the defendants on the same charges under emergency laws in effect since Muslim extremists assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Only 11 of the defendants showed up in court. They pleaded innocent and were released without bail in this oasis city 65 miles south of Cairo.

Judge Ahmed Ezzeddine Ashmawy adjourned the trial to June 8 to give the rest of the defendants time to appear and to allow prosecutors to legally notify Abdul Rahman in the United States and three co-defendants in Egypt.