4 Accused Muslim Extremists Get Death for Egypt Killings

CAIRO —  A military court sentenced four men to death on Saturday for murdering and robbing Christian jewelers to finance the Islamic extremist campaign against Egypt’s secular government.

Eight were acquitted and 20 were given prison terms ranging from two years to life.

The men were arrested in a government crackdown on extremists, who began a violent campaign last year to install strict Islamic rule. At least 185 people have died in extremist attacks or in battles between extremists and police.

Also Saturday, police investigating the attempted assassination of Interior Minister Hassan Alfi discovered a bomb factory in a Cairo apartment rented by a man killed in the explosion aimed at Alfi’s car, police sources said.

Police found two bombs, along with TNT and bomb-making gear, the sources said. The man was believed to be a member of Al Jihad (Holy Struggle), the group that has claimed responsibility for staging the attack Wednesday that killed four and wounded 15, including Alfi, whose ministry is leading the crackdown on extremists.

Police identified the apartment’s tenant as Diaeddine Hafez, an “Afghan Arab” who trained fighting the Soviet army alongside Afghan guerrillas.

There have been no arrests connected with Wednesday’s attack, however, and the sources said police are still not sure how many attackers there were.

The defendants sentenced Saturday were accused of belonging to the Shawkeen extremist movement, named for Muslim radical Shawki Sheik, who was killed by police in 1990.

One of those sentenced to die was Ramadan Mustafa Mohammed Hassan, 28, believed to be the movement’s leader.

Shawkeen is known for raiding Christian jewelers’ shops and killing low-ranking policemen.

Military courts have sentenced 22 other defendants to death since President Hosni Mubarak started sending cases of extremists to these courts in October to speed up the trials. Fourteen of the defendants have been hanged. One man convicted by a civilian court also was hanged.

Human rights activists have criticized use of military courts, since the defendants are civilians and have no opportunity to appeal aside from a plea to Mubarak for clemency.

New criticism of the military courts arose earlier this month when a civilian judge acquitted 24 suspected extremists of murder charges, complaining that torture was used to force confessions.

Four of the 32 defendants whose verdicts and sentences were announced on Saturday were tried in absentia, including one of the men sentenced to death. Hassan is in jail.

At the opening of their trial in June, the defendants chanted, “We have a cause--to bring down the secular leader.” But they all pleaded innocent to the charges of robbery and murder, and some said they had been tortured in prison.

Altogether, they were charged with 12 crimes between 1990 and this year, including four murders.

Journalists working for foreign news agencies were barred from the courtroom at the Red Mountain military barracks in Cairo on Saturday. A military intelligence officer told reporters that this was because their coverage would be damaging to Egypt’s image abroad.