Embassy re-opened

NORWAY has re-opened its embassy in Cairo after closing it last week due to a terrorist threat, said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Karsten Klepsvik. He refused to reveal details about the threat. The embassy closed on 8 January and re-opened on Sunday 11 January.

Norway is famous for its global advocacy and efforts to establish peace and is the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, hence, its citizens were shocked by Osama Bin Laden's announcement last May that Norway was a target for future Al-Qa'eda attacks.

Releases and arrests

ON SUNDAY the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement announcing that Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed ordered 13 members of their group to be remanded in custody for 15 days pending investigations of charges of trying to revive the activities of the group. Suspects, including a doctor, lawyer and several teachers, were arrested on Thursday 8 January, mainly in Cairo, for allegedly holding meetings in a bid to revive the activities of the banned, but sometimes tolerated, group.

These arrests came shortly before the death of the group's supreme guide Ma'moun El-Hodeibi. Seven Brotherhood members, including former MP Gamal Heshmat, and the director of the Alexandria Centre for Human Rights Ali Abdel-Fattah, were released on the same day their comrades were being arrested.

Those just released were arrested in September last year at Heshmat's home in the northern town of Damanhour and remained in custody until Sunday.

Gama'a in Thailand

TWO EGYPTIANS, two Thais and a Cambodian will be tried before a Cambodian court next month. They are charged with belonging to the clandestine Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya Group and with having links to Al-Qa'eda network.

Three of the suspects -- one of the Egyptians and the two Thais -- were arrested last May ahead of a mid-June visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, during which police announced they had crushed a network of Islamic fundamentalists. One of the two Egyptian suspects remains at large and will be tried in absentia among other suspects on 2 February.

According to Cambodian authorities, the suspects allegedly are members of the Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya and had been operating out of an Islamic school on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, which, allegedly, was being used as a front to channel Al-Qa'eda money into the country from Saudi Arabia.

In May, Cambodian police shut down the school and arrested the Egyptian and the two Thais for alleged connections with Al-Gama'a and expelled the school's 28 foreign teachers and their 22 students. These were nationals of Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Thailand, Yemen and Egypt.

If convicted the suspects face a sentence of 20 years to life.

Islamist convicted

AN AMERICAN court has found an Egyptian guilty of immigration fraud and has sentenced him to one year in jail. The prosecution, however, was arguing for a 10-year sentence.

The sentence came three months after Soliman Beheiri was convicted by a jury in a US district court of illegally procuring citizenship and making false statements under oath.

Beheiri was arrested in June as a material witness in a wide-ranging probe of terrorist financing and was held for two months before being charged in a federal court with immigration fraud.

Although the crimes for which Beheiri was convicted normally carry a sentence of six to 12 months, the federal prosecutors sought the statutory maximum of 10 years because they said Beheiri's crimes were linked to support of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which is marked as a terrorist group by the US.

However, the US district judge ruled on Monday that Beheiri's alleged connections to Hamas were irrelevant to the charges for which he stood accused. The judge also said that the government had failed to prove a connection between the immigration fraud and terrorism.

Consequently, Beheiri's US citizenship has been revoked and he will be deported to Egypt after serving the sentence.

Slippery roads

SUNDAY and Monday witnessed heavy rains which led to slippery roads and several car accidents. On Monday a bus carrying pilgrims travelling to Mecca, Saudi Arabia skid on its way to Cairo Airport and rolled over on the 26th of July highway, killing seven people and injuring 13. Eye witnesses blamed the accident on a speeding vehicle attempting to overtake the bus on the wrong side. This confused the bus driver, who lost control of the vehicle.

Official statistics show that about 5,000 people die annually on the nation's road network.

Moreover, due to bad weather, three Egyptian ports on the Red Sea were closed on Monday to avoid any accidents. Port Tawfik, Adabeya and the oil tanker terminal of Zayteya were closed after the ports were battered by waves three metres high and winds reaching over 30 knots.

Compiled by Jailan Halawi