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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Interview Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Jihad leader faces US charges
By Jailan Halawi
The US has officially charged Ayman El-Zawahri, leader of the underground Jihad group, and his aide, Khaled El-Fawwaz, with involvement in the twin bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last August. El-Zawahri is believed to reside in Afghanistan while El-Fawwaz is under arrest in Britain for running a press office on behalf of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
Osama Bin Laden
A public prosecutor in New York, who filed charges against 15 suspects, said in her report that the Egyptian Jihad group merged with Bin Laden's Al-Qaeida (the base) in February 1998. The two groups target American interests and citizens. According to the report, the charge of involvement in an international conspiracy includes the killing of US military personnel in Saudi Arabia and Somalia as well as American citizens working at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The prosecutor said that out of the 15 suspects, five are detained in the US and one, El-Fawwaz, in Britain. The rest, who are still at large, include Bin Laden and El-Zawahri. There is a $5 million bounty for Bin Laden's capture from US authorities.
According to the prosecutor, Bin Laden, El-Zawahri, Mohamed Seddiq Ouda and seven others face possible death sentences. El-Fawwaz, Ali Mohamed, Wadie Al-Hajj and Mamdouh Mahmoud Selim face possible life sentences.
US officials also warned of a new international terrorist operation planned by Bin Laden and his followers that, it is believed, might target American interests in Senegal, Ghana or Mozambique.
At the same time, an Egyptian Islamist residing in Britain accused authorities there of handing Egypt and European governments information and copies of documents seized from his home while he was under arrest in March.
Yasser Tawfik El-Serri, director of the so-called Islamic Observation Centre, described his claim as a behind-the-scenes scandal for British police. He said that British authorities recruited Egyptian translators, with direct connections to the Egyptian government, to translate personal documents seized from him, "which facilitates the transfer of information directly to the Egyptian authorities".
El-Serri said that some information was relayed to countries which later began investigations of certain persons in connection with their relationship to the Islamic Observation Centre. But the investigations did not lead to much, after the authorities in these countries found that these relationships were "within the framework of human rights issues".
British police arrested El-Serri in March, searched his house and confiscated computer equipment, a fax machine and documents, including papers listing the telephone numbers of Islamists living in a number of countries. El-Serri was released four days later, but was asked to provide explanations of some of the seized documents. He is expected to be re-interrogated in July.
El-Serri was sentenced to death in absentia by the Supreme Military Court in Cairo in 1994 for plotting a failed attempt on the life of then Prime Minister Atef Sidki. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by a military tribunal in April of this year in the case dubbed by the local press as that of "the returnees from Albania".
El-Serri lived briefly in Yemen and Sudan before arriving in Britain in 1994, where he was granted a residence permit. He charged that the British government "broke the rules governing the conduct of employees in charge of implementing the law, which it ratified at the UN General Assembly in 1979. These rules stipulate that employees in charge of implementing the law are sworn to secrecy concerning issues that are ranked as highly confidential."
El-Serri added that he filed a complaint after finding out that data on five Egyptian asylum-seekers, who were arrested in Britain last September, had been leaked to the Egyptian consulate in London. But a British security official denied that the source of information was the British police.
El-Serri said that "the situation was repeated on a larger scale in my case".
