Just Off Tahrir Square, Protesters Demand Release of Blind Sheik Jailed in U.S. CAIRO -- When Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's president-elect, pledged on Friday that he would work for the release of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks in 1995, some Egyptian bloggers expressed shock and dismay. But Mr. Morsi had promised to do just that on the campaign trail, as Ahram Online, a state-owned news site, reported last month. One week before Egyptians went to the polls for the first round of the country's presidential election in May, Mr. Morsi, an Islamist, said he would press for the cleric's release, in an apparent effort to court the votes of the fundamentalist Muslims known as Salafists. In his speech to tens of thousands of supporters in Tahrir Square on Friday, Mr. Morsi connected the effort to free the cleric with the plight of Egyptian civilians subjected to military justice since the army took power following last year's revolution. "I see the family of Omar Abdel Rahman," he said, "And I see the banners of the families of those who have been jailed by the military." The cleric's family and supporters began a sit-in to press for his release nearly a year ago, and continue to occupy a street just off Tahrir Square, next to the American Embassy. The sheik, who lived in the United States, was sentenced to life in prison by a federal court in 1996, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to blow up New York City landmarks and assassinate Egypt's president at the time, Hosni Mubarak. While American news organizations focused mainly on the mention of the jailed cleric, the reaction to the speech was much more favorable, according to Bassem Sabry, an Egyptian blogger. Mr. Sabry also took note of the fact that the president-elect demonstrated to the crowd that he was willing to stand in the packed square without wearing a bulletproof vest, before concluding with a plea for his nation to stop "romanticizing presidents and leaders."