(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 died Saturday morning from natural causes at age 78, said Greg Norton, spokesman with the federal correctional complex in Butner, North Carolina. He had battled diabetes and coronary heart disease, Norton said. Abdel-Rahman was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison.