 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Jihad émigrés
By Jailan Halawi
sentenced to death
Ayman El-Zawahri, leader of the clandestine Jihad group, his brother Mohamed, and seven other leading members of the organisation were sentenced to death in absentia on Sunday by the Supreme Military Court. El-Zawahri, who is believed to reside in Afghanistan, is known to be a close associate of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
Of the 107 defendants tried at the Haekstep military camp, northeast of Cairo, 78 were given prison sentences, 11 of whom were condemned for life. Twenty were acquitted.
Three of those sentenced to life imprisonment were in police custody after having been handed over by Albania, while the other eight were among a total of 60 defendants who were tried in absentia.
The defendants were accused of belonging to an illegal group bent on using terror to overthrow the government, planning the assassination of top government and security officials and the possession of forged documents.
Authorities received information about Jihad's overseas setup and operation through the investigation that preceded the trial.
"These are a bunch of evil people," said the chairman of the four-judge panel. "They are a gang of terrorists and saboteurs who planned to flood our peaceful nation with blood, darkness and injustice." The chief judge is an army brigadier-general who cannot be named for security reasons.
Of those sentenced to imprisonment, 18 got 15 years, 19 got 10 years, eight got three years and three got one year.
After hearing the sentences, the defendants, standing in an iron cage fenced off with barbed wire, shouted slogans urging a "revolution against America and Zionism".
Outside the courthouse stood dozens of mothers, fathers, wives, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters of the defendants, who were not allowed into the camp. Many of them broke down and wept after being informed of the sentences by lawyers and reporters.
In telephone interviews from Afghanistan, El-Zawahri and bin Laden vowed to continue the jihad against the United States and Israel. The Saudi dissident has been accused by the US of masterminding the twin bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last August in which 224 people were killed.
According to security sources, the Jihad expatriates were included in the trial in order to achieve a legal basis for any request for their extradition. Alternatively, the government may request the authorities of the countries in which they took refuge to restrict their movements.
Security sources are of the opinion that the sentences were lighter than expected. They said that 25 of the 35 who faced the death penalty were given jail terms and one was acquitted.
But Islamist lawyer Montasser El-Zayyat told Al-Ahram Weekly that the sentences were "very harsh". He described them as a "sword hanging on the necks of those condemned to death. If any of them is extradited to Egypt, he will be hanged on the spot," El-Zayyat said.
Sentences passed by military courts cannot be appealed and are only subject to ratification by the president.
Yasser El-Serri and Adel Abdel-Bari -- both sentenced to life imprisonment -- are known to be in Britain. The two had been condemned to death in absentia in previous trials. Ahmed El-Naggar, a key defendant who also got life imprisonment, had been sentenced to death in absentia in October 1997 for plotting an attack on tourists.
Ahmed Ismail Osman, one of 12 defendants handed over by Albania, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He had also been sentenced to death in absentia in 1994 for ordering a failed assassination attempt on then Prime Minister Atef Sidki.
According to a defence attorney, El-Naggar's testimony was "the corner-stone of this case. Every single name he mentioned in the course of interrogation was included in the case, even those whom he had met only once or by coincidence."
Mohamed Shawqi El-Islambouli, a leading figure of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya and a brother of the leader of the assassination squad that killed President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981, was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in absentia.
Sources said that information passed to Egypt by Albanian authorities indicate that El-Islambouli was involved in recruiting and training Egyptian and other Arab militants for participation in the war against the Serbs, first in Bosnia and now in Kosovo.
After the judges left the courtroom, many of the defendants shouted Allahu Akbar (God is great) and described themselves as martyrs in the struggle for Islam's prevalence.
"The United States should expect more attacks in response to its involvement in the handing over of many brothers to Egypt," said El-Naggar, who wore the red prison uniform reserved for convicts on death row.
Defendant Said Sayed Salama, who had been handed over by Saudi Arabia and was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, was described in news reports as one of bin Laden's close aides. But, speaking to the Weekly from his iron cage, he denied any involvement with militant groups. "I'm a businessman who worked in Saudi Arabia for years," Salama said. "I travelled to Yemen and Sudan, but that was for business and had nothing to do with bin Laden."
Ahmed Salama Mabrouk, a ranking member of Jihad's Shura Council, was sentenced to life in prison. He had been convicted for his role in Sadat's assassination and served seven years in jail. Following his release, he left for an unnamed Arab country and later went to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Albania and, finally, Azerbaijan.
In an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, Mabrouk claimed that Jihad possesses chemical and biological weapons which it plans to use against US and Israeli targets. "Jihad has drawn up a plan for carrying out 100 attacks against American and Israeli targets and figures in different parts of the world," he said.
Mabrouk said the plan was on a computer disc which was seized from him upon his arrest by the CIA in Azerbaijan and was later handed over to Egyptian authorities.
Later, a daily Arabic newspaper reported that US authorities have arrested a fugitive Egyptian Islamist who was sentenced to death last Sunday, but is also wanted in the United States for anti-American activities in Africa.
A police source requesting anonymity identified him as "the Islamist Ali Abul-Saoud Mustafa, a former Egyptian army officer".
Mustafa had been asked by bin Laden to gather information about US embassies in Africa, the source said, adding he then visited Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Somalia in 1995 and 1996.
"The United States is carefully examining the possibility he was implicated in the attacks against the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam," he added.
Mustafa, 45, resigned from the Egyptian army in 1984 before moving to the US where he has been living and from where he made several visits to Afghanistan.
"Because of his experience in the army, he has assumed an important role as an official providing military training to Jihad members in their camps in Afghanistan," the source said.
Investigations led by the US and Egyptian security services revealed that he led fund-raising campaigns in the United States to finance Jihad activities, the source said.
He allegedly helped El-Zawahri to enter the US in 1995 to raise Jihad funds from mosques in the state of North Carolina.
These details have been confirmed by confessions from fellow Jihad member Khaled Abul-Dahab who was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment.
Abul-Dahab, an Egyptian who became an American citizen, travelled to the United States with Mustafa's help.
Al-Hayat also published a statement by the Vanguards of Conquest, a Jihad offshoot, which condemned the verdicts and military courts and vowed that the Islamist struggle would continue.
El-Serri, who heads the London-based Islamic Observation Centre, issued a statement affirming that "the verdict will never force me to give up my cause".
Jihad, which was officially blamed for Sadat's assassination, joined the International Front for the Struggle Against Jews and Crusaders set up in February 1998 under bin Laden's leadership.
The trial was the largest-ever militants' prosecution since El-Sadat's assassins and their associates were brought to justice in 1981.
Security sources said the trial of another group of Jihad militants, handed over by Yemen and Kuwait in the last few months, is due to begin soon.
Jihad and Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya have been fighting to establish an Islamist state in Egypt since 1992. More than 1,200 people, mostly militants and policemen, have died in the confrontations. However, after police tightened security measures, militant activities have fallen sharply since the beginning of 1998.
