US News

O eyes ‘blind sheik’ release

TERROR GURU: A poster supporting jailed “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman looms in the background last week amid anti-US unrest in Egypt. (
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The Obama administration is weighing the release of blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman — the spiritual adviser to the 1993 World Trade Center bombers — in a stunning goodwill gesture toward Egypt that has touched off a political firestorm, officials said yesterday.

The Egyptian government “asked for his release,” an administration source told The Post — and Rep. Peter King (R-LI) confirmed the request is being considered.

The White House, State Department and Justice Department each issued statements denying any deal is in the works, but, “There’s no way to believe anything they say,” said Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant US attorney who prosecuted Abdel-Rahman. “I believe there may already be a nod-and-wink agreement in place.”

Abdel-Rahman, 74, was convicted in 1995 of plotting terror attacks throughout the city and is locked away in the medical wing of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina.

He remains revered in his native Egypt, and his supporters have demonstrated throughout Cairo for his freedom.

Newly elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, has publicly vowed to press the United States to turn over the sightless sheik.

His incarceration was the subject of Arabic-language message-board rants two days before protesters stormed the US Embassy in Cairo and later killed the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, according to a Department of Homeland Security report obtained by Fox News.

They wrote he should be released, “even if it requires burning the embassy down with everyone in it.”

King and other congressional Republicans sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying, “The release of Abdel-Rahman or any terrorist who plots to kill innocent Americans would be seen for what it is: a sign of weakness and a lack of resolve by the United States and its president.”

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said last night, “The blind sheik is going to serve out his life sentence. There are no discussions about transferring him. These reports are wrong.”

Justice spokesman Dean Boyd added, “Suggestions that the US government is planning to transfer or release the blind sheik to Egypt are totally false and absolutely baseless. He remains in federal prison where he is serving a life sentence for terrorism violations.”