Egypt frees two Sadat murder convicts: state TV

Mar 11, 2011

CAIRO — Egypt's new military rulers have ordered the release of two Islamist prisoners jailed over the 1981 assassination of president Anwar Sadat, state television reported on Friday.

Cousins Tareq and Abbud al-Zomor, members of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, were convicted for their involvement in Sadat's murder but were never discharged from jail after their sentences expired.

Abbud, at the time a senior military intelligence officer, was due to be released in 2006 but was kept in prison, while Tareq was first ordered released in 2003 but was also kept behind bars.

Former interior minister Habib al-Adly had used discretionary powers granted by the emergency law to overrule several judicial release orders.

The two were among 69 political prisoners freed on the orders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power in Egypt after veteran president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down by a popular uprising.

The military rulers said those released would be subject to surveillance for five years.

Sadat was shot dead by Islamic militants at a military parade in Cairo on October 6, 1981, three years after he signed the 1978 Camp David Accords that led to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the first by an Arab country.

Abbud is one of the members of the group who carried out the attack, while Tareq was said to be involved in the planning.

The main convict in the case, Khaled al-Islamboulli, was executed in 1982.

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