Omar Abdel-Rahman, 1993 World Trade Center bombing plotter, dies

Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman prays inside an iron cage at the opening of court session in August 1989 in Cairo. Abdel-Rahman was jailed for life in 1995 for his role in terrorist attacks, including blowing up the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. 

Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian-born cleric serving a life sentence for plotting the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center and other terror attacks in New York, has died, a prison spokesman said Saturday.

Abdel-Rahman died Saturday morning from natural causes at age 78, said Greg Norton, spokesman with the federal correctional complex in Butner, North Carolina. He had battled diabetes and coronary heart disease, Norton said.