Three minors leave juvenile prison, as Egypt-Israel swap underway

Oct 27, 2011, 8:14 GMT

Tel Aviv - Three minors left a juvenile prison in central Israel on Thursday as part of a mini-exchange of prisoners with Egypt, an Israel Prison Service (IPS) spokeswoman, Sivan Weizman, said.

Israel was freeing the three minors, aged around 14 to 18, who had served several months for illegal infiltration across the border, alongside 22 other Egyptian nationals, most of them drug smugglers.

In exchange, Egypt was releasing Ilan Grapel, an American-Israeli in his late 20s who has been held in Cairo since June.

The three were on their way from Ofek prison north-east of Tel Aviv, to a jail in the southern Iraeli desert city of Beersheba, where the 22 were awaiting their release, Weizman told dpa.

From there, the 25 were scheduled to leave around noon for the southern Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat, to continue from there to the Taba border crossing with Egypt. The journey down south was expected to take several hours.

They were due to cross the border at 5 pm (1500), at the same time as Grapel was scheduled to board a direct flight to Tel Aviv.

Grapel's New York-based parents said he had arrived in Egypt in May for voluntary work with refugees, for which his law school gave academic credit, but he was arrested by Egptian authorities, initially on charges of espionage, then of incitement.

His parents have called the charges ludicrous and critics have accused Egypt's new rulers of using a dual Israeli-US national to divert attention from internal strife.

Weizman said the three Egyptian minors to be freed had already finished serving their sentences and had been awaiting deportation regardless of the exchange.

The swap comes a week after a larger prisoner exchange between Israel and the radical Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza. Mediated by Egypt, the deal had also paved the way for Thursday's scheduled exchange.

But while the exchange with Hamas included scores of hard-core militants sentenced to multiple life sentences, the longest-serving Egyptian to be freed Thursday - convicted to 11 years for arms dealing - would have been finished his sentence in five years' time.

Five others would have finished their jail time by the end of the year.

Israel's supreme court late Wednesday rejected petitions against the release of prisoners to Egypt.

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