Muslim Cleric Charged in N.Y. Bombing Plots : Terrorism: The sheik is named with 14 others in an indictment that links World Trade Center blast, scheme against U.N. and a plan to assassinate Egypt’s president.

Radical Muslim Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center, U.N. headquarters and key transportation arteries into Manhattan, as well as planning to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and to commit other terrorist acts.

The charges constitute the first criminal action against the blind cleric in connection with U.S. terrorist incidents and mark the first time the government has alleged that the terrorism was the work of a single organization.

Although the indictment, made available by the Justice Department here, alleged that the terrorism was “designed to undermine the foreign relations of the United States,” the 27-page document gave no indication that there was evidence of foreign direction or involvement in the plots.

The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in New York, named 14 other defendants and referred to about a dozen unindicted co-conspirators, some of them unidentified. Eleven of the 15 defendants were accused in an earlier indictment, which the current charges supersede.

Together, the indictment says, the defendants plotted “to levy a war of urban terrorism against the United States, to oppose by force the authority of the United States, and by force to prevent, hinder and delay the execution of laws of the United States.”

The terrorism erupted in force Feb. 26, when a powerful car bomb exploded in a basement garage at the World Trade Center, a structure whose twin 110-story towers have become an international symbol of America. Six people were killed, more than 1,000 were injured and thousands fled down smoke-filled stairways.

Four months later the FBI and New York police broke up a plot to bomb the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks when they raided a Brooklyn garage, where explosives were being mixed, and arrested eight suspects--a number that later grew to 11 people under indictment.

At the time, federal law enforcement officers believed that they had found “a second cell” of terrorists. But the new indictment describes that group as being linked with those charged in the trade center bombing.

The indictment also says the campaign of terror dates back to the Nov. 5, 1990, murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the radical Jewish Defense League and a former Israeli legislator. The indictment accuses El Sayyid A. Nosair, one of the four newly named defendants, of murdering Kahane in a Manhattan hotel lobby.

Nosair has been serving a term in New York’s Attica State Prison on a weapons conviction in connection with the Kahane killing. He was acquitted on state murder charges.

The federal indictment, presumably based on new evidence, charges him with committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering by murdering Kahane and by attempting to murder a U.S. postal officer while fleeing the scene of the Kahane killing.

During his state trial, Nosair received public support from many of those now charged in the World Trade Center bombing case, which is set for trial Sept. 14, and in the later plot to blow up other New York structures.

Abdul Rahman, 55, spiritual leader of other suspects charged in the New York terrorist cases, has long insisted that he had no advance knowledge of their alleged crimes and that he does not condone violence against Americans.

Barbara Nelson, a lawyer for Abdul Rahman, said that she was surprised by the charges and that she does not think “there’s any basis to indict him.”

But the indictment alleged that Abdul Rahman was a leader of an “organization” that dates back to at least 1989 and sought to “carry out acts of terrorism, including bombings and murders, against various governments and government officials, including the United States government.”

Abdul Rahman was consulted by others in the organization about bombings, murders and other acts of terrorism, the indictment said.

He “provided instruction regarding whether particular acts of terrorism were permissible or forbidden, served as a mediator of disputes among members of the organization and undertook to protect the organization from infiltration by law enforcement authorities,” the grand jury charged.

For example, the indictment charged that on May 23, Abdul Rahman “told a person known to the grand jury that while the bombing of the United Nations would not be impermissible, it should not be done at this time.”

A source familiar with the case said the “person known to the grand jury” was the government’s informant, Emad Ali Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army colonel who acted as an aide and bodyguard to the sheik. Salem, who was equipped by the FBI with a hidden recording device, is in protective custody.

The indictment also charged that Abdul Rahman “told a person known to the grand jury to look for a plan to bomb the United States military,” the indictment charged, and instructed the same person “to proceed cautiously” with a plan to bomb the federal building that houses the FBI in New York.

Some defense attorneys have said they expect to raise a defense of entrapment because, they allege, Salem instigated some of the alleged offenses.

Abdul Rahman, who has been confined in recent months in a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., has waged a two-year fight against being deported from the United States on the grounds that he made false statements in obtaining a visa to come here.

His attorney said earlier this month that he might be willing to go to Afghanistan but not to Egypt, where there is an arrest warrant for him for allegedly participating in a 1989 anti-government riot.

The indictment contained new allegations of terrorism plans by the suspected conspirators, including targeting government and law enforcement officials and judicial officers for kidnaping and assassination. The defendants also were accused of conspiring to obstruct justice by kidnaping and taking hostages to win the release of imprisoned members of the organization.

The grand jury charged that on May 6, 1992, the imprisoned Nosair and “a person known to the grand jury” met at Attica and discussed a plan for Nosair’s escape and the targeting of Jews for assassination, “including a New York state assemblyman and the judge who had sentenced Nosair to prison.”

Besides Abdul Rahman and Nosair, another person charged Wednesday for the first time was Mohammed Abouhalima, brother of a suspect indicted earlier in the trade center bombing. A fourth man named in the latest indictment, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, had been charged last month with plotting a “suicide mission” against Mubarak while the Egyptian president was in the United States.

The defendants are to be arraigned at 2 p.m. today.

The 11 people named in the earlier indictment all have pleaded not guilty. They are Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, Clement Rodney Hampton-el, Earl Gant, Amir Abdelgani, Fadil Abdelgani, Ibrahim Elgabrowny, Victor Alvarez, Tarig El-Hassan, Fares Khalafalla, Mohammad Saleh and Matarawy Mohammed Said Saleh.

On May 29, the indictment charged, Siddig Ali and Amir Abdelgani were driving with a person known to the grand jury to New York’s “diamond district,” and the two defendants proposed killing Jews there by placing a bomb at that spot. In June, Siddig Ali allegedly advised a person known to the grand jury that the conspirators had recruited a pilot to bomb the presidential residence in Egypt and “an American embassy.”

Abdul Rahman and the other defendants are charged in the 20-count indictment with conspiring against the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Abdul Rahman also is charged with conspiring with Siddig Ali, Abouhalima and Haggag to murder Mubarak--a crime that carries a maximum of life imprisonment on conviction.

The other charges include attempted bombing, murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder of a federal officer, use of a destructive device, use of firearms, obstruction of justice, assault on a federal officer and resistance, possession of false identification documents and fraud and misuse of visas and other documents. Penalties on conviction range from five years in prison to a life sentence.