Muslim Cleric Loses Round in U.S. Deportation Fight : Immigration: A Justice Department panel rejects his appeal of a March ruling, but more appeals are possible. Egypt wants Abdul Rahman extradited.

Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, whose followers have been linked to the World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist plots, moved a step closer to deportation Friday when a Justice Department immigration panel rejected his appeal of an expulsion order issued in March.

Attorneys for the militant Muslim cleric, who is in custody in a prison hospital in Upstate New York, said they were disappointed by the ruling but said that they could delay his deportation for years by filing further appeals.

Abdul Rahman, 55, who is blind and diabetic, has not been charged with any U.S. offenses relating to terrorism, and he has denied instigating any plots against the United States. However, the Egyptian government asked U.S. authorities earlier this month to extradite him for trial in his homeland for attempted murder and for inciting a 1989 riot. The State Department has offered to cooperate.

Officials said that the deportation and extradition proceedings are on separate legal tracks and that each could take years to resolve. One official said that “the United States can’t kick him out of the country while he has an appeal pending to stay here.”

The Justice Department said that the deportation ruling by its Board of Immigration Appeals is a private action--unlike a federal court opinion--and could not be released publicly. They said only that the board had ruled there were “no grounds” for overturning a March 16 decision by Immigration Judge Daniel Meisner in Newark, N.J., that the sheik should be excluded from the United States because he is here illegally and had concealed past criminal conduct.

Abdul Rahman entered the United States from Sudan in 1990 on a tourist visa that U.S. authorities said should not have been issued, primarily because he was on a U.S. government list of undesirable foreigners.

Meisner found that he also is excludable because he failed to disclose a check fraud conviction in Egypt and that he is a bigamist, either of which would have disqualified him for U.S. residency. In addition, the judge rejected the sheik’s request for political asylum.

The immigration board acted on Abdul Rahman’s appeal in four months, substantially faster than the six months usually needed to decide a case. One source said that it moved quickly because of the publicity about the sheik and his followers.

The sheik’s attorneys were expected to appeal Friday’s ruling to a federal appellate court. “We are exploring all legal avenues at this time,” Rohit Turkhud, one of the sheik’s lawyers, told reporters in New York. He said that he and his associate, Barbara A. Nelson, had not yet received a copy of the board’s decision.

“We are exceedingly disappointed with the verdict,” added Mohammad T. Mehdi, head of the American-Arab Relations Committee, who has supported the sheik’s legal battle and occasionally acted as his spokesman.

Egypt’s request for Abdul Rahman’s extradition still is being processed at the State Department, officials said. The extradition papers will be sent to the Justice Department when the State Department has completed its work.

The sheik, who is known for his fiery speeches, and two associates are accused of attempted murder of two Egyptian police officers and inciting violence in El Faiyum four years ago. Although Abdul Rahman was acquitted on the charges once, the government of President Hosni Mubarak was dissatisfied with the outcome and ordered the case retried.

In the New York-New Jersey area, at least a dozen of the sheik’s disciples have been indicted on charges that they bombed the World Trade Center last Feb. 26 or were plotting to blow up the United Nations Building or other highly visible targets this summer.

Abdul Rahman surrendered to federal authorities a week ago when Atty. Gen. Janet Reno determined that he should be held in custody on the immigration charges.