Daily Star - Egypt Prosecutors Call For Death Penalty In Hizbullah Case

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Samer al-Atrush
Agence France Presse

CAIRO: The prosecution in a trial of 26 alleged Hizbullah members charged with planning attacks in Egypt demanded the death sentence on Tuesday, a judicial source said. The prosecutor made the request during a hearing at the emergency state security court trying the high-profile case, which has damaged relations between Egypt and the powerful Lebanese Shiite group.
He called for “the harshest sentence against the defendants,” the source said. The trial will resume on February 20.
The men are accused of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and tourist sites, of spying, along with other charges.
Most of the group, which includes five Palestinian suspects and one Sudanese, were rounded up between late 2008 and January 2009.
Four of the defendants in the court case, among them the alleged Lebanese ringleader Mohammad Qublan, are being tried in absentia after they fled the country.
The defendants, in a hand-written letter obtained by AFP, said they never planned attacks in Egypt but sought to help the Hamas rulers of Gaza, who have close ties with Hizbullah .
Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsud, one of the defense lawyers, said he believed the court would not sentence the men to death if they were convicted because they did not commit any violence.
“It’s impossible. Even if we were to suppose that the charges were true, which they are not, they would have been in the planning stages,” he said.
At a previous hearing, Lebanese suspect Mohammad Mansur told AFP that he and the other defendants had been tortured. Police have denied the accusation.
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had admitted after the arrests were publicized that he had sent Mansur, identified by his code-name Sami Shihab, to Egypt to support Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
He said the cell comprised no more than 10 people and denied they planned attacks in the country.
The trial reignited a war of words between Egypt, Hizbullah and its Iranian backers.
Egypt, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Iran, accuses Tehran of backing the plot.
The Islamic Republic and the Lebanese Shiite group say Egypt contrived the case against the men.