An Egyptian man suspected of links to Al Qaeda and involvement in the 1997 massacre of 58 foreign tourists arrived in Egypt after being extradited from Uruguay, Egypt's official news agency said. The Middle East News Agency (MENA) said Mohammed Ali Hassan Mukhlis arrived in Egypt on Thursday. It said the suspect had allegedly received military training in an Al Qaida camp in Afghanistan in preparation for the 1997 attack at a pharaonic temple near the southern Egyptian tourist town of Luxor. Mukhlis had been caught in 1999 in Uruguay, on the border with Brazil, carrying a false passport.
| A false passport, was it? Damn. That's a new one... |
Uruguay had only agreed to extradite Mukhlis after receiving guarantees from Egypt that he would not receive the death penalty or a life sentence if found guilty of any charges, sources in the Latin American country said. Egyptian Islamist lawyer Montasser Al Zayyat, who has defended militants in the past, said he had taken on Mukhlis as a client. He said Uruguay had also sought guarantees that Mukhlis would not be tried in a military court and that his lawyer would be allowed to attend questioning. Security sources in Egypt said Mukhlis was a suspected member of the militant Al Gamaa Al Islamiya, which gained infamy for the Luxor attacks — the climax of a bloody 1992-1997 battle between the government and militants fighting for an Islamic state. |