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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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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 Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters London militants
By Jailan HalawiIbrahim Hussein Abdel-Hadi Eidarous, 42, and Adel Abdel-Meguid Abdel-Bari, 39, were both arrested in London Sunday on US extradition warrants alleging they had conspired with Saudi Arabian dissident Osama Bin Laden to murder US citizens.
Bin Laden is the alleged mastermind behind the bombings of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam on 7 August 1998, which killed a total of 224 people. Both men remained silent in court, but their lawyers denied they were involved in the attacks. The Saudi millionaire remains a fugitive and was recently included on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List, with a $5 million tag on his head.
Magistrate Graham Parkinson postponed the case until 19 July, saying the US government had to clarify why it had waited so long to issue warrants for the two men. Both were remanded in custody for a week.
Abdel-Bari's lawyer called the US government's case "a cocktail of surmise and sensationalised hypothesis," while Eidarous' lawyer said her client had been subjected to a "Kafkaesque nightmare and the abuse of power by the US."
Last week, Eidarous was one of four Egyptian asylum-seekers who won a long battle to remain in Britain rather than being sent back to Egypt where they said he would be tortured and possibly killed. The four were held in prison for nine months under immigration law, after initially being arrested in London under anti-terrorism laws.
The latest US move brings to 17 the total number of people who have been charged in the United States in connection with the near-simultaneous bombings. Five of the suspects are in custody in New York, while another suspect, Khaled Al-Fawwaz, is also in British custody and awaits extradition.
Prosecutor Arvinder Sambei, representing the US government, said both defendants' fingerprints were found on copies of documents claiming responsibility for the bombings sent to news organisations in Paris, Doha, Qatar, and Dubai soon after the bombing.
Eidarous' signature was also found on a threatening letter issued before the attacks, while Abdel-Bari's signature appeared on a property rental document alongside that of Saudi businessman Al-Fawwaz, who is identified as Bin Laden's key assistant and head of the London office which seeks to oust the Saudi monarchy. Al-Fawwaz is also wanted for extradition by the US government in connection with the bombings. He is being held in a British prison after appearing in court last month and now awaits a court hearing on 4 September.
The prosecution said Eidarous and Abdel-Bari were associates of Al-Fawwaz and, in turn, had links to Bin Laden, who has been living in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban movement. Eidarous and Abdel-Bari were linked to Al-Fawwaz's Advice and Reformation Committee organisation, described as a front for Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda, (The Base), a "terrorist organisation," according to Sambei. "There is documentary and telephone evidence to show a close link between Eidarous, Abdel-Bari and Al-Fawwaz," Sambei said.
Abdel-Bari obtained political asylum in Britain in 1993, and was sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt last year for plotting to blow up Cairo's famous Khan Al-Khalili bazaar. In April, Abdel-Bari was sentenced to 25 years in absentia by a military tribunal in Cairo in the case dubbed by the Egyptian press as 'the returnees from Albania." He was also named in the Egyptian government's 'Call to Combat Terrorism' catalogue released November 1997 after the massacre of 58 tourists in Luxor by Islamist militants.
The catalogue said Abdel-Bari and 14 other Egyptian militants mastermind terrorist missions from abroad. Abdel-Bari set up the International Office for the Defence of the Egyptian People in London in 1997 aiming to "expose the regime's aggression against the Egyptian people's beliefs, dignity, freedom and prosperity," according to an inaugural statement.
Abdel-Bari, a lawyer, left Egypt in the early 1990s after defending numerous Islamist militants in Egyptian courts, including Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of the Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, currently serving a life sentence in the United States for his role in the bombing of the New York World Trade Centre.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak blasted Britain after the Luxor carnage, saying militant leaders living in Britain and Afghanistan were the planners and financiers of such attacks. Mubarak has requested the handover of militant leaders, yet there has been no word of whether they would be turned over to the Egyptian government.
A criminal complaint issued in New York last Monday charged that a witness identified Abdel-Bari as having helped fugitive members of a terrorist group to obtain passports and that he has been in contact with Bin Laden's military commander via satellite telephone. The complaint also alleged that Eidarous organised a secret terrorist cell in Baku, Azerbaijan, in August 1995 and was in frequent contact with Bin Laden's military commander in 1998.
The London arrests were welcomed by the White House, which will "continue to be vigilant and concerned about the threat that Bin Laden and his network poses to Americans and American institutions around the world," said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.
Omar Bakri, who heads the London-based Islamist group, Al-Muhajiroun, denounced the arrest of Eidarous and Abdel-Bari, describing them as "political refugees who had not been involved in terrorist activities. They cannot be accused of anything whatsoever."
He added that Muslims in Britain condemn the "barbaric" actions of the British government against "innocent Muslims who were lulled and betrayed into believing they could seek sanctuary in Britain from their corrupt regimes." Bakri noted that the British government has adopted "a harsh policy against the peaceful Muslim community, using fear, force and the methods of tyrant regimes in exchange for future economic favours."
He said that Bin Laden "represents the struggle of justice against evil." Bakri, an associate of Abu Hamza, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric wanted by Yemeni authorities for terrorist offences, also protested against last year's British anti-terrorist legislation which he claims singles out Muslims. "I don't want to see any confrontation," Bakri said, "but if [Britain] continues this terrorist policy, Muslims have a right to defend themselves."
