|
Zawahiri's brother acquitted in new trial
[Pak Daily Times] An Egyptian military court on Monday acquitted the brother of al Qaeda's leader Ayman al- Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... , Mohammed al-Zawahiri, overturning a death sentence in a new trial, his lawyer and his son told AFP. The court also acquitted Mohammed Islambouli, whose brother Khaled assassinated former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981, they said. They had been convicted of planning terrorist attacks. "Thank God, he was found innocent," Zawahiri's son Abdelrahman told AFP by telephone after the verdict. "We expect him to be released in the next few days," his lawyer Kamel Mandur said. In 1998, Zawahiri and Islambouli were sentenced on charges of undergoing military training in Albania and planning military operations in Egypt. Mandur said the trial also acquitted several other former terrorists, including the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Sayyed Imam Fadl. But Fadl, like the others acquitted, had shunned violence in the late 1990s and engaged in a war of letters with Ayman al-Zawahiri, denouncing al Qaeda's attacks. Mohammed al-Zawahiri was released by the military along with other prisoners after Hosni Mubarak's ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... fall before the rulers appeared to have a change of heart and had him relocked away within 48 hours. His son said that Zawahiri had disappeared in the United Arab Emirates and was then secretly renditioned back to Egypt after his sentencing. He said that in 2001, the US asked Egypt for help in identifying a charred skull found in caves in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains after a battle with al Qaeda terrorists, suspecting it to be the remains of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The US asked Egypt for a DNA sample from Mohammed al-Zawahiri, said his son Abdel Rahman. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-20 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=341280 |