Egypt has mastermind of assassination attempt on Mubarak in custody

CAIRO, Egypt, Jan 8, 2005 (AP) — Egypt acknowledged that the alleged mastermind of a 1995 assassination attempt on President Hosni Mubarak has been extradited to Egypt and will face trial, the official Middle East News Agency reported Saturday.

Interior Minister Habib el-Adly did not disclose where Moustafa Hamza, leader of the al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya militant group, had been extradited from, but last month an Egyptian security official and an Islamic activist said Hamza had been turned over by Iran.

But Iran has denied holding Hamza or returning him to Egyptian custody.

“We have received Moustafa Hamza and he will face a retrial as soon as possible,” el-Adly told reporters in Tunisia, the Middle East News Agency reported.

Egyptian authorities first arrested Hamza in 1981. He served three years in prison in the case of the 1981 assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. On his release, he went to Afghanistan.

Egyptian courts since sentenced Hamza to three death sentences on charges of involvement in terrorist operations in Afghanistan in 1992 and in Sudan in 1995 and also for the attempt on the life of Mubarak during a 1995 visit to in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia .

“He is from the very dangerous elements and getting to him is a success for the (Egyptian) security apparatus and good bilateral relations between Egypt and other countries,” he said without elaborating.

It had been widely believed that Hamza, 48, had been under house arrest in Iran since October 2003.

In 1996, Hamza’s name was on a list of the 14 “most dangerous, wanted Egyptians abroad.” He was allegedly in charge of his group’s military wing, which carried out anti-government attacks during the 1990s aimed at toppling Mubarak’s regime and replacing it with strict Islamic rule.

However, when al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya – or the Islamic Group – renounced violence in 1997, Hamza supported the decision and agreed two years later to halt all attacks inside and outside Egypt.