Story highlights Cleric told a judge in 1996 his case was part of "the American war against Islam"

He was also convicted in plot to assassinate then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

(CNN) 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, 78, died of natural causes at 9:40 a.m. (1440 GMT) at a medical center at a federal prison compound in Butner, North Carolina, according to Greg Norton, a spokesman. According to Kenneth McKoy, the facility's acting executive assistant, Abdel-Rahman was 78 years old and died after a long struggle with coronary artery disease and diabetes.
Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, dies in his federal prison cell in Butner, North Carolina.