'Al-Ahram:' Egyptians seek release of inmates held in jails in Israel and the United States in return for alleged spy| Returning to an old fashioned Arab tradition. Once upon a time they did this kind of thing in Montezuma, but then they gave it up for some reason. |
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...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
's visit to Cairo last week. The deal would reportedly include some 25 of the 80 Egyptians held in Israel, most of them convicted of security-related offenses or border infiltration. The paper reported that some two dozen Egyptians could be released from US prisons as well.
| "...And a pony with a long pink mane for me to brush!" |
US and Israeli officials, and Grapel's family and friends, have dismissed allegations of espionage as "absurd," and say the 27-year-old Emory University law student traveled to Egypt to volunteer with an organization aiding African refugees.
Maj.-Gen. Sameh Seif El-Yazel, described by Al-Ahram as a security expert, said a prisoner exchange could pave the way for discussions of modifying national security and armament agreements between Egypt and Israel.
"[T]here is a desire by both sides to hold a more critical dialogue about issues that were previously probed infrequently," he said. "It would not do Egypt any good to keep the spy behind bars when there can be more benefits -- this is standard procedure on such matters in most countries."
This weekend the daily quoted Mohamed Said Lotfi, head of the campaign to free Egyptian prisoners from Israeli jails, as saying Grapel should not be released but should be tried as a spy.
"However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
if he must be released, then the deal should be in return for the release of all Egyptian prisoners in Israeli jails," he said.
Al-Ahram also reported that the son of Omar Abdel-Rahman (also known as the "Blind Sheikh") has filed a request for his father to be included in a prospective exchange. Abdel- Rahman, leader of the radical group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyaa, is serving a life sentence in North Carolina for seditious conspiracy for his part in planning and promoting a series of terrorist attacks on US targets.
On Monday the Islamist group held a protest outside the American Embassy in Cairo calling for Abdel-Rahman's release.
Last week Deputy Regional Development Minister Ayoob Kara asked US Ambassador Daniel Shapiro to demand that along with Grapel, Cairo release Ouda Tarabin, an Israeli Beduin shepherd held in Egypt for more than a decade after illegally crossing the border.
"This is the last chance [to secure Tarabin's release] before the rise of the Moslem Brüderbund. Everyone knows what they will do and what his fate will be," the Likud politician said.
In 1999 Tarabin was sentenced under Egypt's Emergency Law to 15 years in prison for espionage, a crime his family and the Israeli government say he did not commit.
In 1996 Azzam Azzam, a Druse-Israeli textile worker, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after being convicted of espionage, a charge both he and the Israeli government denied. Following the intervention of the Shin Bet, Azzam was released in 2004 in exchange for six Egyptians convicted of planning terror attacks.