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In an interview with TIME in January, Sheik Omar carefully denied involvement in any violent incident. "What is needed from me is not to make fatwas, but to say the truth," he said. Though his manner is good humored, Sheik Omar grows sharp when railing against the "dishonest" Western media and denouncing the brutal tactics of Egyptian security forces, abuses that are also well documented by human-rights organizations. His harsh interpretations of Muslim scriptures have won the allegiance of many young and disaffected Egyptians.
According to Salameh's court-appointed attorney, Robert Precht, his client has not mentioned the cleric in their two conversations since his arrest. Ibrahim Elgabrowny, the second man who was picked up last week after he tried to block an FBI search of his home, is a cousin of El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian American who is currently serving up to 22 years in Attica state prison on a weapons charge related to the 1990 Kahane slaying. Like Salameh, Nosair worshipped at Al-Salam Mosque. The address where Elgabrowny was arrested is also listed on Salameh's 1992 driver's license and has been used by Nosair. The New York Times reported on Saturday that authorities had found several false passports in Elgabrowny's apartment, including a Nicaraguan passport made out in Nosair's name and dated eight months after Nosair had been sent to Attica. Officials speculated that Elgabrowny may have been plotting a scheme to spring Nosair from Attica and reunite him with his family in Nicaragua.
Al-Salam Mosque, if unknown to the world at large before last week, has something of a mixed reputation in Jersey City. After Salameh's arrest, local merchants quietly voiced their relief. One shopkeeper described the worshippers as "bloody men who want to see everyone who isn't a Muslim killed." He also claimed that a shop owner had been harassed after he criticized the mosque in a television interview following the Kahane murder. "They made his life difficult and even fire bombed the store," he said. But a young Coptic Christian, who runs a bakery near the mosque, dismisses such reports. "In Egypt the problems are between the Muslims and Copts," he says. "Here, we live in peace."
People who live in the neighborhood said they have not seen Sheik Omar since Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, which began on Feb. 22. Mohammed Mehdi, secretary-general of the National Council on Islamic Affairs, said the sheik left New York to visit friends in Detroit. Mehdi added that Sheik Omar was exhausted by the publicity surrounding the January hearing in a federal immigration court in Newark, New Jersey, when the cleric was threatened with deportation for failing to disclose on his visa application that he had passed a bad check in Egypt. The judge has yet to rule.