Middle East News
Brother of al-Qaeda's second-in-command released in Egypt
Mar 17, 2011, 16:58 GMT
Cairo - Mohamed al-Zawahiri, brother of al-Qaeda's second highest commander, was released from custody in Egypt on Thursday after more than ten years in prison, police sources said.
Mohamed Al-Zawahiri is known to have been a military commander in the terrorist network Islamic Jihad, leading the network's activities in Bosnia and Albania during the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
His brother, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is Osama bin Laden's number two man within the al-Qaeda network.
The brothers are also believed to have led the Islamic Jihad movement in Egypt.
An Egyptian court tried Mohamed Al-Zawahiri in absentia in 1998, and sentenced him to death.
An engineer now in his 50s, he was extradited to Egypt in 2000 from the United Arab Emirates, where he had been hiding.
He is one of over 700 political detainees ordered released by Egypt's Supreme Military Council, which took control of the country after former president Hosny Mubarak's ouster last month.
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