Sheik, 9 Others Guilty in N.Y. Terrorism Plot : Conspiracy: Prosecutors charged that the Muslim cleric and his followers aimed to wage a holy war against the U.S. One co-defendant is convicted in the 1990 murder of JDL founder Rabbi Kahane.

The largest terrorism trial in the nation’s history concluded Sunday with the conviction of Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and nine co-defendants on charges of conspiring to wage urban warfare against the United States.

After seven days of deliberations, a federal court jury delivered what prosecutors called a major victory for the government in its fight against international terrorism, finding the defendants guilty of all but two charges.

Prosecutors charged that the sheik led an organization aimed at waging a jihad, or holy war, against the United States because he considered it an enemy of Islam and wanted to change U.S. policies in the Mideast.

Targeted for almost simultaneous bombings, prosecutors said, were the U.N. headquarters, the FBI field office in Manhattan and two commuter tunnels linking New York and New Jersey.

Abdel Rahman, 57, a blind Muslim cleric, faces life in prison without parole for another part of the scheme: plotting to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

One of the sheik’s followers, El Sayyid A. Nosair, also faces life in prison for his conviction in another part of the plot: the 1990 murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the militant founder of the Jewish Defense League.

Eight lesser defendants face maximum prison terms of 20 to 30 years when Judge Michael B. Mukasey imposes sentences in a hearing scheduled for late January. Lawyers for all the defendants said they will appeal Sunday’s verdicts.

“Today’s guilty verdicts against all 10 defendants are extremely important for the city, the country and the world,” said U.S. Atty. Mary Jo White. “ . . . Law enforcement will vigorously and effectively pursue all terrorist plots that threaten our free, open and peaceful co-existence. We should all be very, very proud and very, very grateful today to all of law enforcement for the work they did in this case.

“We should also be very proud today for the American system of justice, which operated as it is intended--to give every defendant, however serious the charges may be, the fairest of trials leading to fair verdicts,” White said.

White praised the jury of six men and six women for being “extraordinarily conscientious and attentive.”

In a statement, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh called the verdicts “an extraordinary victory in the fight against terrorism.”

As the foreman of the anonymous jury--a 39-year-old telecommunications worker with three children--read the verdicts, Abdel Rahman, head bowed, listened intently through earphones to an interpreter. Tears filled the eyes of his chief lawyer, Lynne F. Stewart.

“He said to me that [I] should not cry, that he is not the first person to go to jail for his beliefs and he won’t be the last, and that when you choose to tread this road, there are pitfalls,” Stewart said later outside the courthouse.

“I am shocked and saddened by what I see as a breakdown in the jury system,” she added.

Stewart said the sheik, who has heart problems and diabetes, will be moved to a federal prison medical facility in the Midwest.

As the convicted men were taken away in handcuffs from the heavily guarded courtroom, one defendant shouted in Arabic: “God is great!”

“We all come from Allah, and we return to Allah,” Nosair said through Roger L. Stavis, one of his lawyers.

”. . . He is relying on his faith to carry him through this critical point in his life,” Stavis said.

Outside the courthouse in Manhattan’s Foley Square, some streets were blocked off by police and federal agents. Police officers surrounded the building, and emergency vehicles with heavy weapons were parked nearby. Officers in a helicopter scanned rooftops.

The precautions were a prelude to even tighter security when Pope John Paul II arrives in New York on Wednesday to conduct religious services and address the United Nations, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Fearing possible retaliations for the verdicts and the presence in a Manhattan federal prison of Mousa abu Marzuk, political leader of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas--who is fighting an attempt by Israel to extradite him--a massive protective force has been assembled.

At a news conference after the verdicts, Assistant U.S. Atty. Andrew C. McCarthy, a principal prosecutor in the case against the sheik and his co-defendants, sounded a cautionary note.

“There is a support system for terrorism in the United States whose designer is Sheik Abdel Rahman,” said McCarthy, adding that it would be “naive to think it has been destroyed.”

Security was tightened at the United Nations on Sunday. In Washington, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena ordered airlines and airports to adopt stricter security measures.

Abdel Rahman, a longtime foe of Mubarak’s government, and his followers were found guilty on a total of 25 counts. In addition to the charge of plotting Mubarak’s murder during the Egyptian leader’s visit to New York in April, 1993, the jury convicted the sheik of seditious conspiracy, a rarely used Civil War-era charge.

Nosair, a former New York City maintenance worker, had been acquitted in a state court of Kahane’s murder, but was found guilty of state weapons possession charges. He was serving time at Attica State Prison when he was indicted in the federal case.

The jury on Sunday convicted Nosair on a charge of murder in the aid of racketeering in the Kahane killing. The assassination was once described as an isolated attack by a crazed gunman but prosecutors later called it the opening blow in a “war of urban terrorism.”

Nosair, along with defendant Ibrahim Elgabrowny, was acquitted of participating in the multi-target bomb plot. Both men, however, were found guilty on the broader seditious conspiracy charge.

More than 200 witnesses testified during the eight-month-long trial. Prosecutors charged that Abdel Rahman defined the goals of the terrorist organization and advised which violent acts were permissible under his radical interpretation of Islamic law.

Outside the courthouse, Stewart raised the specter of religious prejudice in the jury’s decision.

“The message is here. Put a Muslim on trial and they’ll convict him,” she charged.

That message was challenged by White, who said the case was not about religious beliefs.

“You can’t in the name of religion commit serious crimes,” she said. “Religion was not on trial. The jury went to the evidence before them and returned a guilty verdict.”

The government’s five-month-long presentation of evidence rested heavily on a sometimes erratic FBI informant, Emad Ali Salem, a former Egyptian army officer who secretly taped conversations with the sheik and others. In addition, the FBI had a videotape that showed several of the defendants mixing explosives in large yellow barrels in a garage in suburban Queens.

The plot was thwarted in June, 1993, before it was ever carried out, FBI agents testified. That was four months after the Feb. 26 bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people and injured more than 1,000--a crime for which four other defendants were convicted last year. They are now serving life terms.

Prosecutors said Abdel Rahman and some of those convicted Sunday had helped plan the trade center bombing, but they were not accused of carrying it out. The 10 defendants were principally charged with conspiring to attack the U.N. headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and the FBI’s headquarters in Manhattan with virtually simultaneous explosions. They also were charged with plotting to assassinate Mubarak.

The burly, bearded Salem, 44, spent five weeks on the witness stand elaborating on his 100 hours of taped conversations with the sheik and other co-defendants. He earned $1.5 million in fees from the government.

The jury listened to many of the Arabic-language tapes, assisted by transcripts in English.

The prosecution’s supporting cast of witnesses included police officers, bomb experts, FBI agents and fingerprint analysts.

In addition, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, a former member of the sheik’s inner circle who was allowed to plead guilty to an unrelated charge of insurance fraud, testified on behalf of the government.

Haggag took the stand to charge that the cleric privately exhorted his followers to commit violence against the United States.

He quoted Abdel Rahman at one point as insisting that “jihad was permissible in the United States” and suggesting that his co-defendants choose serious U.S. targets.

The sheik and most of his associates did not take the witness stand. Only three of the defendants testified--one of them, Victor Alvarez, to support his lawyer’s claim that he is mentally deficient and was misled by others.

Defense lawyers attacked Salem’s credibility, extracting acknowledgments from him that he often had lied about his background and other matters.

“There is no jihad in America,” Stewart said in closing arguments. She charged that Egypt had manipulated the United States and Salem had duped the FBI in a scheme to put the sheik in prison so he could not foment revolution.

Defense attorneys sought to convince jurors that Salem, with little supervision from the FBI, was allowed to “set up” and lead his fellow Muslims into conversations about possible bombing targets as a classic agent provocateur.

Another argument stressed by the defense was that the alleged conspirators never planned attacks on U.S. sites, but were being trained to help Muslims in conflicts, such as the war in Bosnia.

Fadil Abdelgani, a Sudanese immigrant who was among those videotaped mixing explosives, took the witness stand to say he believed that the operation involved some kind of “training.”

Clement Hampton-el, who along with Alvarez was the only U.S.-born Muslim on trial, acknowledged to jurors that he was tape-recorded telling his associates he would try to obtain bomb detonators for them.

“I said it,” he testified. “I didn’t mean it.” He said he was just trying to impress others with his importance.

Abdel Rahman’s lawyers had planned a more elaborate defense, including testimony from Islamic law experts that jihad did not mean war against American citizens. But the judge upheld government objections that testimony about religious beliefs was irrelevant.

Times special correspondent Helaine Olen contributed to this story.

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

In some 1997 stories, and stories from 2001 onward, Mousa abu Marzuk is referred to as Mousa abu Marzook.

--- END NOTE ---