Freedom of religious thought may face a severe threat next week, when lawyers finally contest the case of 12 Islamist radicals accused of plotting a “war of urban terrorism” in New York.

The government claims the 12 men, including radical Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, planned to blow up the United Nations and several key New York bridges and tunnels, and to kill Senator Al D’Amato and other politicians.

The defence counters that the informant who turned in the suspects — former Egyptian colonel Emad Ali Salem — devised the plots himself in order to entrap the Muslims. Former aide to Abdel- Rahman, Dr Mohammed T. Mehdi, said Salem “did not join a terrorist organisation — he helped to create it.”

But looming over the entire trial is a potentially more dangerous question: To what extent can an individual be tried because of his religion?

Muslim and Arab activists and civil rights lawyers alike worry about the precedent, should Abdel-Rahman be convicted essentially on the charge of offering religious advice to the bomb plotters.

Abdel-Rahman’s defenders do not dispute that the cleric has been taped by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as discussing with Salem whether it is religiously permissible to blow up buildings or kill people in the name of Islam.

“There have only been a handful of prosecutions for seditious conspiracy, and most of them the government has lost,” said Ron Kuby, who, until recently, had been Abdel-Rahman’s attorney. “These so-called crimes are intensely political, and juries don’t like to see people put on trial for their beliefs.”

He warned that, if the government succeeds in convicting Abdel- Rahman for his controversial, and even violent, preachings, “then we’re in a very bad way for civil liberties. Speech, including religious speech, could be prosecuted by the government.”

Abdel-Rahman’s lawyer, Lynne Stewart, has sought to portray the blind, 56-year-old diabetic cleric as an innocent person persecuted because of the government’s fear of radical Islam.

“The evidence (against him) is purely what he said, what he preached, what he thought,” Stewart said. She has repeatedly claimed that Sheikh Omar merely makes religious recommendations in the tapes when he is told about bomb plots; he does not suggest technical or tactical advice himself.

Stewart’s opinions have infuriated the judge, Michael Mukasey, who told prospective jurors this week, “No man is charged here with having opinions or simply expressing opinions.”

That may be debatable in jurors’ eyes. As jury selection progressed this week, one prospective juror was dismissed after complaining about the “bad attitude” of Arab cab drivers in New York; another was let go after confessing to fears about Muslim terrorists.

The government’s case hinges on the fact that five Sudanese men — Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, Amir Abdelgani, Fadil Abdelgani, Fares Khalafalla and Tarig el-Hassen — were caught in Jun. 1993 concocting a ‘witches’ brew’ of explosives for their plot.

Salem, who tipped off the FBI, later connected other men — including immigrants Mohammed Saleh and Matarawy Mohammed Said Saleh and U.S.-born Muslims Victor Alvarez and Clement Rodney Hampton-el — to the plot.

One objection by the defence is that, as the net of suspects widened, the nature of the ‘plot’ grew — from attempts to blow up the United Nations to sketchy plans to kill politicians, including Sheikh Omar’s alleged threats to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The plot even included the 1990 killing of rightist Jewish leader Rabbi Meir Kahane. El-Sayyid Nosair, who was acquitted of the murder but imprisoned on related weapons charges, has been accused of being part of the plot, along with his cousin, Ibrahim el-Gabrowny.

The media’s focus on Nosair and Abdel-Rahman has been so great that Nosair’s lawyer, William Kunstler, has despaired of obtaining a fair trial. “Public hatred is so intense right now that you can convict anyone if they’re Islamic,” he said.

According to the defence, that means the trial may be more about religion than about evidence or Emad Salem’s credibility as an informer. Muslim activists have told IPS that they fear a backlash against Muslims from the trial.

“There could definitely be a backlash against anyone who is perceived as speaking out too much about Islam,” one activist said on condition of anonymity. “We’re very scared.”