The release of an Egyptian blind sheikh, jailed in the United States for the 1993 World Trade Center attack, will be urged by Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi during his upcoming visit to the U.S., the leader said on Monday.
The announcement follows his pledge, during his presidential campaign earlier this year, to free Omar Abdul Rahman. The preacher is currently serving a life sentence and the planned request for his release appears to be gesture, by Mursi, to Gama'a al-Islamiya, a Salafi group.
Sheikh Rahman is the spiritual leader of Gama'a al-Islamiya, which was involved in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat but renounced violence in 1997. The group has entered mainstream politics since former President Hosni Mubarak was toppled.
In September, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stressed there was no plan to release him following his trial and conviction.
| But that was before Champ got extra flexibility... |
Mursi told CNN in an interview aired Monday that he was hoping to travel to the United States before the end of March 2013, and he planned to raise the case of Sheikh Rahman with U.S. President Barack Obama.
"There is no set date yet, but it will most likely be before the end of the first quarter of this year," Mursi said. |