A blind Egyptian cleric convicted for his role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York has died in a U.S. prison, Reuters reported on Saturday. He was 78.

Omar Abdel-Rahman was sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for orchestrating plots to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels among other New York City landmarks. He was also convicted of the World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000.

The FBI was able to nab Abdel-Rahman and his co-conspirators before they were able to carry out the landmark attacks.

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Abdel-Rahman had long been tied to terrorist groups, including the fundamentalist Islamic Group in Egypt. He came to the U.S. in 1990 on a tourist visa issued by the U.S. embassy in Sudan, and gained permanent legal resident status in 1991.

During his time in the U.S., the radical cleric built a following of fundamentalist Muslims, and was on the State Department’s list of individuals with ties to terrorist organizations.

Abdel-Rahman’s son Ammar told Reuters that a U.S. representative had called his family to notify them of Abdel-Rahman’s death.