Newsreel

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Thwarted attempt

ON TUESDAY, a 22-year-old unemployed Egyptian man was arrested while trying to cross the border between Egypt and Gaza at Rafah. Egyptian border guards shot and wounded Mohamed Abdel-Fatah as he attempted to climb the barbed wire fence at the border.

Upon interrogation, Abdel-Fatah said he had been so affected by televised coverage of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians that he wanted to join a radical Palestinian faction in order to mount a suicide attack against Israel.

The guards first fired warning shots before shooting Abdel-Fatah, who was unarmed, in the leg.

Strong condemnation

THE 16TH annual conference of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs condemned recent terrorist attacks carried out by militants in various countries, reiterating that Islam stands for tolerance. The delegates expressed "deep concern and strong condemnation of the terrorist operations which have struck Arab and Islamic countries, especially Saudi Arabia".

The four-day Islamic conference -- chaired by Religious Endowments Minister Hamdi Zaqzouq and attended by representatives from 70 nations and international Islamic organisations -- also condemned "the savage actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people, the assassination of Palestinian leaders and the construction of the separation wall".

The conference's concluding statement said, "it is barbaric on the part of Israel to attack innocent civilians including women and children, and demolish their homes." The conference also called for the international community's intervention to protect the rights of Palestinians, curb Israeli violations, help implement the roadmap, while urging Islamic nations to exert pressure on the United States, "which blindly supports Israel and its settlement expansion policies".

On Iraq, they expressed outrage at "the state of anarchy on the security level".

'False friendship'

ON MONDAY, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the establishment of an Egyptian-Israeli friendship society, saying Arabs do not need "false friendship".

The judge noted that establishing relations with Israelis should only be a governmental concern, since the government is the sole body responsible for implementing agreements between countries. The judge also charged that these kinds of associations were more aimed at serving individual and group agendas without taking national security into consideration.

The would-be friendship society was the brainchild of a film director, Nabil Abdel-Alim, who took the case to court after the Ministry of Social Affairs -- which is in charge of licensing Egyptian civil society organisations -- rejected his application to establish the association.

Confirming a prior ruling from a lower court, the administrative court said, "the Arab public does not need such false friendship."

Although Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel on 26 March 1979, relations have been tense for many years. Egypt has had no ambassador in Tel Aviv since 2000, when it withdrew its envoy in protest against Israel's violent suppression of the Palestinian Intifada.

Dealing out justice

A DRUG-dealing gang who controlled the Nile island of Nekheila in Assiut, around 320 kilometres south of Cairo, for more than three decades is set to stand trial for murder, kidnapping and several other charges. Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed told reporters that 78 members of the gang -- of whom 10 are at large -- would be tried by the Assiut Criminal Court for their role in the six-day siege of Nekheila.

Earlier this year, security forces cordoned the island and forced a 24-hour curfew on the nearly 70,000 residents after gang leader Hamed Mohamed Hamed, known as Ezzat, took at least 160 residents hostage, threatening to kill them and to ignite cooking gas canisters if police tried to storm the village. More than 3,000 officers -- with reinforcements brought in from neighbouring governorates and Cairo -- as well as 100 armoured vehicles were deployed around Nekheila during the confrontation, in which two people were killed and 10 others wounded, including five policemen.

Abdel-Wahed gave no date for the start of the trial, but listed the charges as murder, kidnapping, arson, possession of weapons, resisting arrest, and the cultivation and smuggling of opium, hashish and bango. He also said that after the siege, police confiscated more than 100 weapons, including homemade bombs.

Egyptians acquitted

AN ITALIAN court has cleared three Egyptians accused of attempting attacks on American interests in Rome. Shocked by the ruling, the prosecution, which had asked that the defendants be given 12-year prison terms, said it would file an appeal. The prosecution had further requested that the three men, aged between 36-44, pay fines of 1,000 euros each.

The three men were charged with illegal possession of weapons and subversive association aimed at international terrorism, a charge that was introduced as part of Italy's efforts to step up its measures in combating terrorism following the 9/11 attacks.

Prosecutors alleged the men were planning an attack on the American cemetery, an American fast food restaurant, as well as Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport.

The court ruled that the facts had not been established and that the defendants had not broken the law. A written explanation of the ruling is expected to come out in a few weeks.

Throughout their trial, the defendants -- who were arrested in October 2002 in the port town of Anzio, about 50 kilometres south of the Italian capital -- denied all the allegations. A search of their apartment had turned up two kilogrammes of TNT, a belt that could be packed with explosives, a handgun and a map indicating the American cemetery in nearby Nettuno, with two of its entrances marked. They also had about 100 forged identity documents.

The men insisted that they were the victims of a setup, and that somebody else had put all the suspicious materials in their apartment.