Alleged assassins on trial

Press, 23 November 1981, Page 8

Alleged assassins on trial

NZPA-Reuter ' Cairo The Supreme Military Court in Egypt yesterday adjourned the trial of four men accused of assassinating President Anwar Sadat, and 20 others charged with plotting his murder. The case was suspended until November 30 after defence lawyers protested that the accused had been tortured by police interrogators, and demanded their release from solitary confinement. The three military judges , sitting in a heavily-guarded courtroom at a military barracks outside Cairo ordered medical examinations on four of the accused to check the allegations of torture. They said an adjournment was also needed to give the defence lawyers time to study the indictment. The defendants, huddled behind bars in a row of four cages in a specially-built dock, all face possible death sentences. They chatted excitedly, joked and occasionally chanted Islamic slogans as they waited for the hearing to start. “We are prepared to sacrifice our lives for religion. Unless religon regains its glory blood will be shed,” they shouted in unison.

Lieutenant Khaled Islambouli, described in the indictment as the leader of the assassins,. sat on a concrete bench for most of the hearing. A plump, bearded figure in a charcoal-coloured sweater — he had refused to appear in military uniform — he talked amiably with guards and the other accused.

He told the judge he did not need a lawyer. “Allah defends the faithful,” he said. The three other men said to have taken part in the killing also , refused lawyers but the Court ordered that they should be represented.