CAIRO: A Cairo court on Sunday rejected a request to release an Islamist jailed more than 26 years ago for plotting the assassination of Egypt’s late president Anwar Sadat, a judicial source said.
The court refused a request by Tarek Al-Zomor, who has already served out his 22-year sentence, because it did not meet procedural rules, the source told AFP.
Zomor was ordered released in 2003, having served all of his term for his involvement in the killing of Sadat during a military parade in October 1981. The interior ministry overruled the decision and he was never set free despite several court orders to release him.
The ministry considers Zomor “a very dangerous person for the country’s security and accuses him of attempting several escapes from prison.
Detained at Tora prison, south of Cairo, Zomor belongs to the Islamist group Al-Jihad, which together with Jamaa Islamiya was behind Sadat’s murder.
Zomor’s brother, Abboud Al-Zomor, was sentenced to 40 years in 1981 in the same case and is still serving out his jail term.
The main defendant in the assassination, Khaled Islambuli, was sentenced to death and hanged in 1982. -AFP
