An update on London bombing suspect El-Nashar in Egypt from Arab News:
CAIRO — The Egyptian Ministry of Interior said yesterday that Magdy El-Nashar, the 33-year-old chemist, an Egyptian who was arrested in Cairo over the London bombings, had no links with Al-Qaeda. “El-Nashar who was arrested on Thursday has no link with Al-Qaeda; so far we don’t know if he is innocent or not. The British Scotland Yard will attend the investigation within the next 48 hours,” said the Egyptian Minister of Interior, Habib El-Adly.The postgraduate biochemist, detained in Cairo, yesterday denied any link to the London bombings. “He said he had come back to Egypt for a month-and-a-half holiday and was planning to go back to Britain to resume his studies and that all his belongings are still in his flat in Leeds,” said Mahmoud Al-Fishawi, head of the information department at the Ministry of Interior.
El-Nashar’s doctorate at Leeds, on which he started research in October 2000, focused on the “development of a novel matrix for the immobilization of enzymes for biotechnology”. In a statement issued yesterday, the Judges Club said if Al-Fishawi [Al-Nashar?] is proved to be guilty, they will refuse to let him be tried in England. The Bar Association has already filed a request at the ministry asking for a permission to attend the investigation.
“So far the ministry has not given us a word, but El-Nashar has a right to have someone to defend him,” said Montasser Al-Zayat, who represents the Freedom Committee of the Bar Association.
Good to live in denial, Mubaraq, isn't it?
What happens if DEFINITE PROOF of the bomb chemicals and their residue is found in the flat he rented?
There are reports the Egyptians are refusing to release Dr Al Nashar because the UK has refused extradition requests in the past for Eqyptian nationals wanted on terrorist charges in Eqypt. (It is the UK judges who will not extradite these people, on the grounds they may suffer harmful treatment when they are returned. Some judges are even reported to have said fairly recently that the terror threat to the UK was over stated. This attitude by the judiciary in the UK was the despair of the last Home Secretary, David Blunkett).
Even so there are some questions here which need to be answered.
1. Dr Al Nashar lent his flat in Leeds to one or more of the London suicide bombers shortly before returning to Eqypt. It was not long after this the bombings took place. He says the timing was coincidental.
2. A quantity of home made explosive has been found in the flat by police.
3. It has been reported in the UK media that Dr Al Nashar pressed his University to give him his Ph.D certificate earlier than normal so that he could leave the country.
4. It has also been reported in the UK that Dr al-Nashar told his neighbours in Leeds he was leaving at short notice because he had problems with his entry visa. The UK government has said there were no problems with his visa which was renewed earlier this year.
5. Dr al-Nashar is reported to have told academic colleagues that he had applied unsuccessfully for an academic job in Dublin (in Ireland). The University of Dublin has said it does not recall his application.
6. It is reported that he had rented a four bedroom flat in Leeds (for one person?).
7. He was awarded a generous bursary for this year but the awarding body said he has not spent any of it. So where was his money coming form?
7. Finally to clarify, a television reporter visited North Carolina university where Magdy Al Nashar was a research student. The university said he was there for only one semester less and took only one subject. So where was he for the rest of the year
There may be innocent explanations for all the above facts, but it does seem, if these are true facts, that they raise questions which need answering. Let us hope he has all the answers.
While one is all for sending back to these countries anyone who has received asylum not for being an Infidel but for being just a little too Muslim, that is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Egypt cannot continue to withhold permission for one of its nationals to be interrogated properly in England itself. It can't. Or rather, it can, but it has to be seen, correctly, as part of Islam, a defender of the Faith, an incubator and promoter of the Jihad, just as long as the Jihad is directed elsewhere,at Israel and the West, and not at Mubarak and his Family-and-Friends Program, which allows him to skim off the top from the $2 billion sent by the foolish American government.