Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 9, 1995                   TAG: 9501100034
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                 LENGTH: Medium

TERRORISM IS GOING ON TRIAL

The sentences, picked up on a hidden microphone just after a bomb timer was successfully tested, are chilling - and stand at the heart of the government's case when the biggest terrorism trial in the nation's history starts today under extraordinary security.

Government lawyers charge that Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 of his followers conspired to bomb targets that included the United Nations, the FBI headquarters in Manhattan and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, which normally are crowded with commuters.

Prosecutors also allege that some of the defendants participated in the earlier assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the militant Jewish Defense League, as a prelude to wider violence that included bombing the World Trade Center and plotting to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a visit to New York.

What is likely to emerge during months of testimony in the federal courthouse at Manhattan's Foley Square is a portrait of a terrorist cell, fueled by religious fanaticism and hatred of the United States, Israel and Mubarak's regime.

Unlike last year's trade center bombing trial in which four of the sheik's followers were convicted largely on forensic evidence, jurors will see FBI videotapes of some of the defendants mixing explosives, hear about scouting trips to potential bomb sites - including the tunnels and New York's predominantly Jewish diamond district - and learn that the accused terrorists constantly feared their phones and meetings were monitored by authorities.

The government's case rests heavily on testimony from a former Egyptian army commando and intelligence operative, Emad Ali Salem, who infiltrated the alleged conspiracy and who served as adviser and bodyguard to Abdel Rahman, the principal defendant.

According to court papers, prosecutors will try to show that Abdel Rahman was the spiritual leader of an organization of ``radical Islamic extremists''who should prepare for ``jihad,'' or holy war, against the West.