Former Aide Says Cleric Urged Him to Kill Mubarak

A former aide to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman testified Thursday that the fiery religious leader urged him to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Abdel Rahman and 10 others are charged with helping to plan the fatal February, 1993, blast at the World Trade Center in Manhattan as well as with plotting to bomb the United Nations building and bridges and tunnels leading into New York. They are also accused of planning the 1990 murder of militant Rabbi Meir Kahane and conspiring to kill Mubarak during a New York visit.

Abdo Mohammed Haggag, the first member of Abdel Rahman’s inner circle to testify against him, said he had asked the cleric in April, 1993, if he should participate in the planned murder of Mubarak. “He told me: ‘Depend on God. Carry out this operation. . . . You are ready in training, do it, go ahead,’ ” Haggag quoted Abdel Rahman as saying.

Haggag agreed to cooperate with authorities after he was arrested in 1993 and his case was severed from the others. As part of his cooperation agreement, he pleaded guilty to a minor insurance fraud charge unrelated to the bombing case.

Haggag, a Cairo native whom Abdel Rahman once called “Peaceful Dove,” testified that he foiled the plot to kill Mubarak by alerting an Egyptian official in New York. He also said he told the official the whereabouts of Mohammed Abouhalima, one of four men who received a life prison sentence last year for bombing the trade center.

Abouhalima was captured in Egypt and extradited to the United States for trial in the bombing.