20 - 26 December 2001
Issue No.565
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 December 2001 Issue No.565 |
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Inter-Arab coordination
EGYPTIAN Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher will travel to Tunisia on Friday on a two-day visit to discuss the situation in the Middle East. Maher will meet with his Tunisian counterpart Habib Ben Yahia and attend meetings of an Egyptian-Tunisian commission to coordinate economic relations between the two countries.
Egypt and Tunisia co- sponsored a resolution submitted Friday to the UN Security Council condemning "all acts of terror, in particular those targeting civilians." The resolution was vetoed by the United States.
Extradited to the US
AN ALLEGED aide to Osama Bin Laden and two Egyptians wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania lost a legal battle in England on Monday to avoid extradition to the United States.
The House of Lords dismissed an appeal by Saudi businessman Khalid Al-Fawwaz, and Egyptians Adel Abdel-Meguid and Ibrahim Eidarous.
Al-Fawwaz is wanted in the United States for allegedly conspiring with Bin Laden in the embassy bombings, in which more than 225 people were killed. The other two face similar charges.
The men claimed at a House of Lords hearing in October that the United States had no right to seek their extradition because their alleged crimes had not taken place on US soil.
They also said they would not be able to challenge the main evidence against them since it came from two unidentified witnesses.
"There is no doubt that conspiracy to murder is a crime within the jurisdiction of the United States and that if the acts were done here it would constitute the crime of conspiracy to murder under English law," said Lord Slyn, judge in the House of Lords.
"In my opinion it was not necessary to show that the acts that the conspiracy relied on were all done in the United States of America," Lord Slyn added, dismissing the appeal.
US prosecutors said Al- Fawwaz, travelled to Kenya in the early 1990s to set up Bin Laden's network there and accused him of helping plan the attacks there and in Tanzania.
Al-Fawwaz later moved to Britain, set up home in London with his family and established a group called the Advice and Reformation Committee, which was said to be campaigning for peaceful reform in Saudi Arabia.
But US prosecutors said he was in fact involved in a global conspiracy against the US with Bin Laden, and aided by Eidarous and Abdel-Meguid.
...And deported from the US
IT TOOK nearly three months for US authorities to determine that Mohamed Omar had no connection to the 11 September attacks, before sending him back to Egypt.
Omar was arrested on 18 September in New Jersey and released from the state's Hudson County Jail on 14 December. He was then deported for having violated the terms of his tourist visa by working at a gasoline station a few times over the summer.
A judge ordered Omar's deportation on 25 September, but he continued to be held for weeks without explanation.
Omar's father, Mustafa, made four trips to the US from Egypt in attempt to bring his son home.
"Nearly three months in custody for an individual who was never charged with a crime," said Omar's lawyer, Sohail Mohamed to reporters. "He spent more time in jail than some people who are actually convicted of crimes," Mohamed added.
Nineteen-year-old Mohamed Omar , an engineering student at Cairo University, was visiting the US this summer on a six-month tourist visa. He lost his third year of study because of his incarceration.
Minor earthquake
A MODERATE earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale occurred near Cairo on Monday, the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics said. No injuries or damage occurred.
The head of the institute, Ali Abdel-Azim Taleb, said the epicentre was in Dahshur, 35 kilometres south of Cairo. The tremor occurred at 6.25am, he said.
Dahshur was hit by a tremor that was 4.9 on the Richter scale on 12 June. The city is home to a number of ancient pyramids, temples and tombs.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab
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