Sadat nephew loses parliamentary immunity

CAIRO: The nephew of slain Egyptian ruler Anwar Sadat lost his parliamentary immunity after implicating the army in the former president s assassination 25 years ago, state-run newspapers said Friday. Talaat Sadat, a 52-year-old deputy, saw his immunity lifted at the request of the military prosecutor after he said his uncle s bodyguards and army officers were involved in the assassination, the reports said. The decision opens the way for the launch of legal proceedings against Sadat, an elected member of the Ahrar Party, a small opposition liberal grouping. Anwar Sadat was assassinated exactly 25 years ago, on October 6, 1981, by Islamist army officers during a military procession to celebrate the anniversary of the 1973 declaration of war against Israel. Among his other theories given in the lead-up to the anniversary of the assassination, Talat Sadat has also said his uncle was the victim of a plot by Israel and the United States despite him having approached Washington and signed a peace deal with the Jewish state – one of the reasons for his murder. Sadat, a lawyer by trade, ran an unsuccessful campaign against incumbent president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt s first multi-candidate presidential poll in September 2005. The anniversary of Sadat s death was largely ignored in the desert nation on Friday, whereas the surprise 1973 attack launched by Egypt and Syria was discretely commemorated. Sadat took the courageous and daring decision of launching the attack setting up an October victory that opened the way for peace, said Mubarak, who took power from Sadat a week after his assassination. No public commemoration took place on Friday, however, with Mubarak already having placed wreaths on Wednesday at Sadat s grave and the tomb of the unknown soldier only in the presence of soldiers. Some 2,700 Israeli troops died in the war which was won by Israel after 19 days of fighting but is seen as one of the great failures of the military intelligence service, which failed to anticipate the attack.