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Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya leader Mostafa Hamza, detained for terrorist activity and attempt on Hosni Mubarak's life, released Tuesday by President Morsi's pardon
Egypt's security authorities released, Tuesday, Mostafa Hamza, a prominent radical Sheikh charged with attempting to assassinate former president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in1995.
Hamza, a leading member of Islamic organisation Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, was extradited to Egypt from Iran in 2004. He was detained following terrorism-related charges that included being a member of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
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(The wire services are ignoring this news. We learned about it via FrontPageMag which highlighted that Hamza was behind the Luxor massacre. FPM excerpted several articles detailing the 1997 massacre of 58 foreign tourists at the Egyptian tourist destination and noted, "The Luxor Massacre has been mostly forgotten, but it deserves to be remembered as a template of the Islamist soul. The full horror of what happened there needs to be understood for us to understand what Morsi has just done."
The former headof news for Egypt's state television, Abdul Latif Minawi, wrote at Al Arabiya:
"It seems we are about to lose the ability to feel astonished at what is happening in Egypt, one day after another. Take, for example, the release of a large number of Islamist militants who were charged with terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians. The last of those was Mustafa Hamza, the mastermind of the attempt on the former presidents life in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. I dont think readers need to be told about Hamzas ideological and organizational stance, but I would just like to remind them that all his co-militants stressed in their interviews and memoirs that he did not only plan the assassination of the president, but was also involved in the killing of tourists in Luxor in 1997."
An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the release from jail of Hosni Mubarak's two sons, as the country's courts continued to undo punishments handed down to allies of the former Egyptian president. Cairo’s Criminal Court found Gamal and Alaa Mubarak guilty in May of embezzling 21 million Egyptian pounds, or ($2,700,000), that was allocated for the renovation of Egypt’s presidential palaces between 2002 and 2011. They were sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay a joint fine of $1,600,000.
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, seated center left, and his two sons, Gamal Mubarak, left, and Alaa Mubarak attend a hearing in a courtroom in Cairo, Egypt.
While not overturning the pair’s convictions in the case, a judge on Monday ordered their release from prison, giving them credit for time in jail already served. The two have served a total of 43 months in jail since 2011, including detentions pending the outcome of other criminal trials, their attorney told Al Ahram, Egypt’s flagship state newspaper. It wasn’t immediately known when the Gamal and Alaa Mubarak would leave prison. They are scheduled to be back in court on Oct. 17 to face charges of fixing Egypt’s stock exchange.
The elder Mubarak, who was forced by a popular uprising to step down in 2011, was also tried and found guilty of embezzlement in May in the so-called presidential palaces case. He remains under detention in a military hospital, awaiting retrial on charges of complicity in the deaths of demonstrators during the upheaval. Gamal Mubarak was groomed to be his father’s successor. He and his older brother Alaa were known for their lavish lifestyles and extravagant spending, which angered many Egyptians as the country’s economy weakened and jobs grew increasingly scarce.
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