CAIRO - Clutching his photo, tens of supporters of Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, currently in jail in America, continued to protest outside the American Embassy in Cairo for the sixth day in a row, threatening escalation if the United States does not release him. The supporters, including members of Abdel-Rahman's family, called on the Egyptian Government and the ruling Military Council to mediate with the American authorities to have the Sheikh, reportedly suffering serious health problems, released. “Sheikh Omar's case is a humanitarian one and it is seriously important for Muslims everywhere,” said Safwat Abdel-Ghani, a lawyer by profession and one of the supporters of the Sheikh. “He was sent to prison on trumped-up charges,” he told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. Accused in the bombing of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan in 1993, Abdel-Rahman was jailed in the United States, shortly after leaving Egypt, having decided to settle in the United States to work for the Islamic mission. His children say their father, an outspoken critic of former president Hosni Mubarak, was the victim of a conspiracy cooked up by Mubarak in co-operation with some intelligence agencies. The cleric's children are now racing against time to convince the American Administration to release him. They say that their father, now over 70 years old, is seriously sick. “We call on the Military Council to take this issue seriously and ask the US Administration to release the Sheikh,” Abdel-Ghani said. “They continue to talk about human rights. This is a human rights issue.”
