Sheik Omar Speaks Out

By Jill Smolowe and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman

Sitting on a couch with his right foot tucked under his left leg, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman met with TIME associate editor Jill Smolowe in his Jersey City apartment in late January. In a living room furnished only with two beige couches, some office chairs and a worn Persian rug, the 90-minute interview was interrupted repeatedly by visitors and phone calls. He talked with a mixture of fervor and good humor about himself, his religion and the U.S. government's efforts to deport him.

Q. How do you find your life here?

A. Definitely it is a life full of cruelty -- being alone, living alone, a blind man; bringing me before the court, withdrawing my green card; the lying of the media.

Q. Why has the U.S. State Department labeled you a terrorist?

A. The State Department is wrong. They get the information from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Q. In Egypt you were imprisoned and charged with complicity in the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

A. The court acquitted me as innocent. I was also accused on behalf of the Jihad organization of planning to overthrow the government. In 1985 I was in prison for three months. In 1986 for one month. In 1989 for four months.

Q. Why did you leave Egypt in 1990?

A. It was too much for me. The police continued besieging my house day and night. I couldn't get out, and nobody could come into my house. Who was going to fix the electricity or the furniture? I had to leave.

Q. Do you advocate the overthrow of the secular government of Hosni Mubarak?

A. Since the time of Nasser, I have advocated the overthrow of the government.

Q. Is that the message you send to Egypt?

A. The regime in Egypt is a dictatorship. Mubarak rules by fire and iron; he rules in a police state; he rules by the emergency constitution and by harsh laws. I challenge Mubarak to survive one hour without his laws and emergency constitution. He is abusing human rights; there are so many injustices.

You have to leave him to his own fate, which is inevitable. One day the Egyptian people will have to overthrow him. You people of Egypt, you have to overthrow this unjust and arrogant ruler.

Q. Do you send messages to Egypt encouraging attacks on foreigners?

A. Tourism is legal in Islam. But tourism is not gambling or dancing in nightclubs or drinking liquor. Tourists have to respect our public rules, our traditions and customs. They shouldn't abuse the dignity of the people or spread AIDS and fornication. We have to protect the rules of the land.

Q. People have compared you to the Ayatullah Khomeini, extolling Islamic revolution.

A. I just want to serve Islam by all my strength and power. Khomeini led a $ revolution and beautified his country, made it clean of the Shah, who was so unjust. What Khomeini did was a real success.

Q. Is this what you'd like to do for Egypt?

A. I want to see that Egypt is ruled Islamically and that Mubarak's regime is overthrown and that every tyrant in the area is overthrown.

Q. What does that mean, "every tyrant"?

A. All Arab rulers, like the Saudis and the Kuwaitis and ((the rulers in)) the gulf states and Yemen and Iraq and the North African countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.

Q. So who's O.K.?

A. ((Laughs.)) Only the Sudanese government ((which has imposed Islamic rule)).

Q. Would you like to head a new government in Egypt?

A. No.

Q. Have you ever issued a fatwa ((religious opinion)) sanctioning the assassination of anybody?

A. What is needed from me is not to make fatwas but to say the truth.

Q. How do you support yourself?

A. Allah is the provider.

Q. What are your feelings toward the West?

A. The West is fanatic about itself. The media are useless and liars and dishonest. They take what agrees with their thinking, and they don't quote everything honestly. It looks like a directed media, and it is a biased one. It is a racist media. He who defends his rights is labeled as a terrorist. Omar Rahman is a terrorist because he defends the Muslims in Egypt.