Egypt Aide Rejects Court Order to Free 56 Muslim Radicals
A supreme state security court Thursday ordered the release of blind theologian Omar Abdel-Rahman and 55 other Muslim fundamentalists, but the Egyptian government refused to set them free, an official spokesman said.
He said Interior Minister Zaki Badr, armed with state emergency powers that give him the right to detain those inciting anti-government unrest, moved the fundamentalists to a penitentiary in the nearby Qena township.
Abdel-Rahman and his colleagues were arrested here on April 30 after clashes with police who acted to ban a mosque rally.
Abdel-Rahman was one of the main defendants in the trial of Muslim militants who planned the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat but was acquitted by a court.
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