Two militants jailed over Sadat killing are released

Two leading Islamic militants jailed over the 1981 killing of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat have been released after more than two decades behind bars, prison officials and lawyers said today.

Nageh Ibrahim and Fouad el-Dawalibi, both founding members of Al-amaa al-Islamiyya, once Egypt’s largest Islamic militant group, were released last Wednesday, the prison officials said.

The two men, believed to be in their early 50s, were convicted for taking part in Sadat’s killing during a Cairo military parade on October 6, 1981. They were sentenced in 1984 – Ibrahim to 24 years and el-Dawalibi to 15 years – for their role in the assassination and for belonging to the outlawed group.

Egypt’s emergency laws allow people to continue to b held after their sentences finish.

It was not immediately clear why they were released. Leading Islamist lawyer Montasser el-Zayat said today that he believed the men were freed as part of a truce between al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Group, and the government.

Ibrahim and el-Dawalibi were among the architects of a truce with the government announced in 1997 and have advocated moderation and peace in numerous books the group published three years ago.

Last Wednesday, Safwat Abdel-Ghani, one of the movement’s chief ideologues, was released from prison. Abdel-Ghani, who has also renounced violence, was sentenced in 1993 to five years in prison for his role in the 1990 killing of Egypt’s parliament speaker.

He escaped prison in 1991 and was captured three months later. He was sentenced in 1994 to five years at hard labour for his escape, and his detention order had been extended since then.

Abdel-Ghani was also charged with ordering the 1992 murder of secular writer Farag Foda from his prison cell.

With the releases, two main group leaders remain in prison: Assem Abdel Maged and Essam Derbala.

In its campaign to overthrow the government during the 1990s, al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya killed more than 1,200 people, mostly militants, tourists and police.

Lt. Col. Abboud el-Zomor, 58, who was also sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting Sadat’s assassination and belonging to the banned Islamic Jihad, remains in prison. He has applied to be freed after serving his sentence. Unlike the Islamic Group, he and his group have not renounced violence.

Islamic Jihad was the principal militant group behind the assassination. In the late 1990s, it merged with the al Qaida group, led by Osama bin Laden, which is blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

The Egyptian group Jihad is not related to the Palestinian group of the same name.

Controversial emergency laws imposed since Sadat’s assassination give security forces broad powers – including great leeway in making arrests and detaining people indefinitely.