Sheik Painted as Leader of Terrorist Army : Trial: Closing arguments draw links of conspiracy between Egyptian cleric and nine defendants. Prosecution claims plans to ‘wage war’ on U.S.

In closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutors portrayed Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and nine of his followers as a self-styled army who wanted to wage a holy war of terrorism against an infidel America.

In his summation to the jury, Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said the radical cleric approved a panoply of plots, ranging from a scheme to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to plans to blow up commuter tunnels linking New York with New Jersey and the Manhattan headquarters of the FBI in an effort to diminish U.S. support for Israel.

“America was the No. 1 enemy,” Fitzgerald said. “He [Abdel Rahman] made no bones about it. . . . Each person in this courtroom was presented a choice--did they want to wage a war against the U.S.--and they agreed.”

Among the charges is seditious conspiracy--a rarely used statute dating to the Civil War that makes it a crime for two or more people to agree to wage war against the United States or to forcefully oppose U.S. authority.

In their summation later this week, defense lawyers will seek to convince the jury that the blind, diabetic, 57-year-old Egyptian, who also suffers from heart disease, did nothing more than exercise his right of free speech.

Fitzgerald alleged that another defendant in the eight-month-old trial, El Sayyid A. Nosair, called Abdel Rahman in Egypt before the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the militant founder of the Jewish Defense League, at a Manhattan hotel.

A state court jury acquitted Nosair of murdering the controversial rabbi but convicted him on weapon charges. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald said Nosair killed Kahane, later confessed three times to the shooting, and while in prison participated in the plot to blow up the World Trade Center. The February, 1993, explosion killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage.

“The rabbi’s murder is not a murder mystery,” the prosecutor added. “El Sayyid Nosair killed Rabbi Kahane.” The government lawyer charged the assassination “was only the beginning” of a series of plots.

Evidence against the sheik and his co-defendants includes tape recordings made by the government’s chief informant, Emad Ali Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer, who was on the stand for seven weeks and is being paid $1 million by the Justice Department for infiltrating the sheik’s inner circle.

Prosecutors contend recordings made by Salem show Abdel Rahman was consulted about targets to be chosen and was a leader of the conspiracy.

“There is a lot of corroboration for Emad Salem,” the prosecutor told the jury. “. . . His story held up. His account held up. There are the tapes.”

On one recording, Abdel Rahman is heard discouraging a plan to bomb the United Nations, a building he said was linked to international peace. “Look for a plan to attack the U.S. military,” he suggested, according to the transcript.

Closing arguments are expected to take about two weeks.