Returnees from Albania


The case of the Returnees from Albania was a massive criminal trial in an Egyptian military court from February to April 1999. The trial is one of the principal sources of information about Sunni terrorist groups in the 1990s, especially al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and its offshoot Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
The largest trial in Egypt since the 1981 trials surrounding the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, it was a landmark case in the topics of extraordinary rendition and the credibility of the testimony of terrorism detainees.
The local Egyptian press coined the phrase "Returnees from Albania" to describe the defendants, in reference to the American-backed extraordinary rendition which saw suspects kidnapped from foreign locations and secretly brought back to Egypt to face trial. In actuality, 43 men were brought from Albania, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and an additional 64 were tried in absentia.
The prosecution leaned heavily on the testimony of defendant Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar, who was the first arrested.

Documentation and terminology

The documents speak of "the Muslim group" or "the Muslim organization", meaning al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya as it was at that time. Most of al-Gama'a later renounced violence, but a violent residue called Islamic Jihad remained; that group was later known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad to distinguish it from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The remnants of EIJ and at least one person in the violent fugitive component of Gama'a have since merged with al-Qaeda.
Reportage of events in the early 1990s mentions one more group, or rather one more name for some of the same people: Vanguards of Conquest. That was the faction of EIJ that was led by al-Zawahiri after the capture and sentencing of 'Abbud al-Zumar, the first emir of EIJ.

The charges

Broadly, the aim of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya was to bring about the destruction of the Egyptian government, followed by its replacement with a sharia-based Islamist regime. To get there, the plan was to kill and intimidate government members, destroy the Egyptian tourism industry, and create fear and distrust in the Egyptian population. In more detail, the trial addressed
Twenty were acquitted, nine sentenced to death, 11 to life imprisonment, and 67 were given sentences up to 25 years.
The trial concluded that the "constituent assembly" of al-Gama'a contained these fifteen names.
Ayman al-ZawahiriEmirIn AbsentiaSentenced to death
Sa'id Imam bin Abdulaziz ash-Sharif, alias Dr. Fadl, alias Abdul-Qadr bin Abdulaziz
سيد إمام بن عبد العزيز الشريف		Religious expertCaptured in Yemen 2001, extradited to Egypt 2004Sentenced to life
Abdullah Muhammad Rajab Abdul-Rahman
alias Ahmad Hasan Abu al-Khayr
احمد حسن ابو الخير		Special Actions Committee
Tariq Anwar Said Ahmed
طارق انور سيد احمد		Special Actions Committee
Almakni Mukhta
المكنى مختار		Special Actions Committee
Muhammad al-Zawahiri
محمد الظواهري
Shura, Military CommitteeExtradited by the UAE early in 1999Under a death sentence; probably still alive in April 2007
Ahmed Salamah Mabruk
alias Abu al-Faraj al-Masri
احمد سلامه مبروك		Shura, Operations boss, Special Actions CommitteeSnatched in Baku in 1998, along with his computer, and rendered to Egypt
Thirwat Salah Shahata
ثروت صلاح شحاته		Shura, Security outside EgyptFled to Afghanistan or PakistanSentenced to death for a second time
Murjan Salim
مرجان سالم		Shura, Legal servicesAt large somewhereUnder a death sentence; was demoted in Gama'a after several of his plots failed.
Adel Abdul-Quddus
عادل عبد القدوس		Families' services, travel facilitationFree in AustriaSentenced to death and was already under a death sentence for the attempt against Sedki
Ibrahim Eidarous
ابراهيم عيداروس		Finance Held in the UK until his death from natural causes in 2008; was wanted in the USASentenced to life
Adel Abdel Bary
عادل عبد المجيد عبد الباري		Information Committee 10 years' imprisonment
Nasr Fahmi Nasr Hassanein
نصر فهمي نصر حسنين		Shura, Finance bossAt large; also wanted in the USASentenced to death
Ahmed Bassiouni Ahmed Dewidar
احمد بسيوني احمد دويدار
alias Abu Ismail		Security within EgyptKilled in Yemen July 2005Sentenced to 25 years

Arrested and charged

The returnees themselves were around 14 in number. About 12 were snatched in Albania, one in Sofia, and one in Baku. One other was killed during the Tirana roundup, which arrested four and occurred in July 1998. The returnees include:
Husam Muhammad Khamis Nuwayr
aka Adil Anwar		pleaded not guilty to overseeing the Feb. 7 1994 bombing of the Egyptian National Bank, the Feb. 15 bombing of the Alexandria-Kuwait Bank, the Feb. 23 bombing of the International Commercial Bank in al-Muhandisin, the attack on the Egyptian-American Bank in al-Muhandisin, the attack on the Mustafa Kamil Branch of Misr Bank and the attack on the Nile Office Tower in al-Jizah.-
Ahmad 'Abd-al-Fattah SayyidWas part of the Feb. 7 1994 bombing of the Egyptian National Bank-
Hasan Salih MahmudWas part of the Feb. 15 1994 bombing of the Alexandria-Kuwait Bank-
Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya
شوقي سلامة مصطفى عطيه		Ran the Tirana office. Egypt issued an arrest warrant for Atiya, and his five colleagues in Tirana, only on the advice of the United States. Atiya claimed he was hanged from his limbs, kept in a cell filled with water to his knees, and suffered electrical shocks to his testicles.-
Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar
احمد ابراهيم السيد النجار		Arrested in Tirana under death sentence from October 1997 following 1994 plot to bomb the Khan el-Khalili market in Cairo.
Muhammad Hassan Mahmud TitaTirana
Ahmad Isma'il 'UthmanTirana; was under a death sentence from March 1994
'Issam Abdul-Tawab Abdul-'AlimSofia
Ahmed Salama Mabruk
احمد سلامه مبروك		Baku
Ahmed Refa'i Taha
أحمد رفاعي طه		Former Emir of Gama'aHeld by Egypt since 2001 and probably still aliveSentenced to death
Mohammad Zeki Mahjoub
محمد زكي محجوب		Alleged to be special Actions Committee, and a terrorist trainerNever charged in Canada, has been fighting immigration "security certificate" since June 2000 in Canada, currently under house arrest pending outcome of his caseSentenced to 15 years in absentia
Yassir al-Sirri
ياسر السري		Has safe haven in the UK; wanted in the USA in the case against Lynne Stewart and othersSentenced to death; was already under a death sentence for his part in the attempt against Sedki, in which a random child was killed
Magdi Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar
مجدي ابراهيم السيد النجار		Brother of Ahmad al-Naggar
Acquitted in absentia
Abdel-Akher Hammad
عبد الآخر حماد		A clericNow free in EgyptSentenced to death but recanted
El-Sayed Abdel-Maqsud
السيد عبد المقصود		Headed the Tirana officeEscaped the roundup in Albania and reached the UK, where he got political asylumSentenced to 10 years
Muhammad al-Islambouli
محمد الإسلامبولي		Said to be now in al-Qaeda; see al-HukaymahSentenced to death
Khalid Abdullah
Involved in 1996 Attack on the Egyptian Embassy in PakistanSentenced to prison
Mohammed Atef
Charged in absentia, sentenced to seven years' imprisonment-
Isam Muhammad Khalil
Ahmad Bakr		Charged in absentia, sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Extradited by Yemen in 2007, while his wife was deported.-

Funding and travel

Ahmad al-Naggar's controversial confession says that the money involved was not great and that it basically "came from Usama bin Ladin". But how exactly the agents in Albania got hold of money is not so simple. It seems probable that one or more Sunni terrorist charities were involved; both al-Haramain Foundation and Global Relief Foundation had branches in Tirana, and a third charity front, Benevolence International Foundation, had an office in Baku.