Two officials of the armed Egyptian fundamentalist group Al Jihad, sentenced in absentia to jail terms, have been extradited to Egypt by two undisclosed Arab countries, a police source said Saturday.
The two officials, Ayman Abdel Razek and Manssur Ghazi, each sentenced to three years jail in 1993 and 1998, respectively, were extradited following a request by Egypt to authorities in the two unnamed countries, the source told AFP.
However, the Islamic Information Watch, a London-based rights organization for Islamist activists, later denied that the extradition had taken place.
Ayman Abdel Razek was sentenced in absentia in 1993 by a military court for taking part in operations carried out within Egypt at the beginning of the 1990s, said reports.
The second man, Manssur Ghazi, was condemned, also by a military court, in 1998 as part of the case known as "Albanian veterans."
The two Islamists said under questioning that they lived for a while in Afghanistan, where they met their leader, Ayman Al Zawahri, the right-hand man of alleged Saudi terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
The two have been taken to Torah Prison, south of Cairo, to serve their jail terms.
In mid-June, Egypt was said to have won the extradition of six Islamic fugitives charged with being involved in terrorist plots.
Islamic sources were quoted by the Middle East Newsline (MENL) as saying the six were extradited from an unnamed Gulf country.
They said Egypt had pressed the country for the extradition of the fugitives for trial in Cairo.
However, Egyptian officials denied at the time that Cairo had obtained custody of the fugitives.
Al Jihad is the second largest armed fundamentalist group in Egypt after Jamaa Islamiya, which claimed responsibility for an attack in Luxor in 1997, in which 58 tourists were killed.
Al Jihad announced it was renouncing the use of violence in February 2000.
The two fundamentalist organizations launched an armed campaign in 1992 within Egypt in an attempt to topple the ruling National Democratic Party – Albawaba.com
