The blind Jersey City cleric whose followers carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six has died in a federal prison in North Carolina, according to the Associated Press.
Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was originally from Egypt but living in Jersey City when followers detonated a truck bomb in the garage of the WTC on Feb. 26, 1993, died early Saturday, the AP said.
He was 78.
Abdel-Rahman was sentenced to life in prison after his 1995 conviction for his advisory role in a failed plot to blow up area landmarks, including the United Nations, and several bridges and tunnels.
Kenneth McKoy of the Federal Correction Complex in Butner, North Carolina, said Rahman died at 5:40 a.m. after a long battle with diabetes and coronary artery disease, the AP reported.
According to CBS News, the sheik’s daughter also announced the death in a series of tweets.
“We are saddened by your departure, father,” she wrote.
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