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Egyptian-born extremist Omar Abdel-Rahman dies in U.S. prison

Xinhua, February 19, 2017 Adjust font size:

Omar Abdel-Rahman, the founder of the extremist Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya (Islamic Group) died on Saturday at a prison in the United States, where he was serving a life sentence over terrorist charges, his daughter tweeted.

"Sheikh Omar has died. We are really grieved for your departure, my father," said Asmaa Omar Abdel-Rahman on her Twitter account.

Dead at 78, the blind Egyptian-born cleric was seen as a symbolic and spiritual leader of jihadists. In 1995, he was convicted of several terror-related charges including planning the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center.

His Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya carried several attacks in Egypt during the 1980s and 1990s before the group's jailed leaders renounced their violence-based philosophy in 2003.

During his one-year rule, Egypt's former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military in 2013, had called for a prisoner swap with the United States to release Abdel-Rahman. Endit