Jailing of blind sheikh pushes Muslim anger against US, warns son

Abdullah, the son of the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, writes to request the US release his father, who has been serving a life sentence for allegedly planning the 1993 World Trade Centre attack in New York.

In the press statement released in Arabic on Saturday, Abdullah says: "The American administration's arrogance and stubbornness towards one of the Muslim world's scholars, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, is putting the lives of its people at risk and costing them a lot."

Abdullah goes on to justify violent attacks and the kidnapping of Americans by Islamist militants, such as Al-Qaeda, explaining that it is the US administration's treatment of his father that "has pushed the Muslim youth to anger for the cleric."

The murder of US ambassador Christopher Stevens to Libya in September during an attack by unknown armed men on the consulate in the city of Benghazi is one example Abdullah cites.

Ahram