Significant shift?

In an unprecedented move, President Mubarak overturns the ruling of a military tribunal against an Islamist militant and orders a retrial, reports Jailan Halawi

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President Hosni Mubarak last week accepted an appeal filed two years ago by Islamist militant Ahmed Hussein Egeiza who was tried and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a military tribunal in 1999. Accepting the appeal means that the ruling against Egeiza will be overturned granting him a retrial. The retrial will start on Saturday before a military court.

This is the first time that Mubarak has accepted an appeal from any of the Islamists convicted in cases related to their organisational activities. Throughout the last decade such appeals have either been ignored or rejected.

The president's decision comes at a time when Egypt has promised to take significant steps towards political reform. The move has therefore been considered by many political observers and press reports as a "leap" in the right direction that might not only spark a trend in Western countries towards extradition -- countries which, while ostensibly protecting human rights, have long been regarded by the Egyptian government as providing safe havens for militants -- but will also encourage expatriate militants to hand themselves in, judging that they stand the chance of a fair trial.

On 18 December 2001 Sweden deported Egeiza along with militant Islamist Mohamed Ibrahim El-Zarri after rejecting their requests for political asylum on grounds that they were suspected of committing "terrorist acts" in Egypt. Both men have been linked to the militant group Jihad, which is on the US State Department's list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Egeiza, leader of the clandestine Vanguards of Conquest -- a banned offshoot of Jihad -- was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court in Egypt in 1999 in the well- known "returnees from Albania" case, when Islamists who had been extradited to Egypt were charged for committing terrorist offences. He was also on a list of 14 "most wanted" expatriates issued in December 1997 following the Luxor massacre, which left 58 foreigners and four Egyptians dead.

Further, the Egyptian authorities accused Egeiza of having links with the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, though he denied this in an interview published in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat in 1999. In the interview, Egeiza distanced himself from the Jihad group, emphasising that he had left the group in 1993 following a dispute with its leader, Ayman El- Zawahri.

In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Islamist lawyer Montasser El-Zayyat applauded President Mubarak's decision to grant Egeiza's appeal as "a move that indicates Egypt's seriousness in encouraging the many expatriate Islamists to hand themselves in as well give Egypt more solid grounds to request [of Western countries] the deportation of others".

Although Egeiza will still be tried before a military court, El-Zayyat believes that his chances of acquittal are "high".

Another case awaits Egeiza after his military trial. According to El- Zayyat, in 1996 Egeiza was charged with reviving the activities of the Vanguards of Conquest. El-Zayyat expects this case to be heard by an oridinary criminal court. He also expects Egeiza to be acquitted since "the man has forfeited any organisational activities since 1993".

Egeiza's deportation by Sweden 2001 had triggered a wave of protests from human rights organisations. At the time, Amnesty International called for international protest to be directed at both the Egyptian and Swedish governments, claiming the deportees' safety was at "significant risk" and that there was little chance, if any, of a fair trial.

In response, the Swedish government said it was confident the men will be treated properly and it had received assurances from Egypt that the Swedish Embassy would be allowed to follow the trial and have access to the men.

Following President Mubarak's acceptance of Egeiza's appeal, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights issued a statement urging that he be tried before a non-military court in order for him to exercise all the rights he is granted under the law.

Only the president can overturn sentences passed by military courts, in his capacity as Chief Military Governor. Such courts were established under emergency laws, in force since 1981 following the assassination of President Anwar El- Sadat.

Human rights groups have repeatedly denounced the existence of emergency laws, and military courts, urging the government to abrogate their use if it is serious about reform and civil rights.