President-elect Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood pre-empted the military's choreographed swearing-in ceremony by taking his oath of office a day early in a televised speech to hundreds of thousands of supporters in Tahrir Square on Friday, June 29.

But his rousing tribute to Egyptian sovereignty may be overshadowed by a promise likely to complicate relations with the United States: to work for the release of the Egyptian-born Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, jailed for plotting to bomb a series of New York City landmarks.