Скачать или смотреть EGYPT: CAIRO: TWO SUSPECTS PLEAD GUILTY TO BOMBING TOURIST BUS

(18 Oct 1997) Arabic/Eng/Nat

A former Egyptian asylum inmate and his brother pleaded guilty to charges that they bombed a tourist bus in Cairo last month in a military court on Saturday.

Saber and Mahmoud Abu el-Ulla admitted they set the bus bomb which killed ten people, saying they were only sorry they did not kill any Jews in the attack.

Seven others charged with providing the brothers with armaments for the attack pleaded not guilty before the trial in Cairo adjourned until next month.

The lead defendants in the Cairo tour bus attack last month arrived at military court exactly one month after nine German tourists and an Egyptian bus driver lost their lives in the incident.

Security was tight as the defendants entered the court complex.

The brothers, Saber and Mahmoud Abu el-Ulla, appeared before the court on charges they planned the September 18 bombing.

Both pleaded guilty to all the charges against them - murder, attacking tourists and damaging the economy through violence and terrorism.

The two admitted they carried out the fire bomb attack and said their only regret was that their victims were mostly Germans, rather than Jews.

From the brothers' prison cell, Saber Abu el-Ulla, talked to reporters.

He recently left a mental asylum where he was committed for killing two Americans and a Frenchman at a Cairo hotel in 1993.

He denied any membership in Muslim militant groups, but said he was a believer in Islamic ideology.

Saber Abu el-Ulla said he and his brother were waging their part of a war he charged Western nations of starting.

SOUNDBITE: (Arabic)
"The (United) States, France and Europe are planning for war since ten years ago. When we make attacks against tourists or kill Jews, Americans or Germans, so we show them that we have got men that can kill as well."
SUPER CAPTION: Saber Abu el-Ulla, defendant

In the September attack, which occurred in the busy Tahrir square of Cairo, the suspects opened fire on the bus and hurled bombs at it just as tourists were boarding.

The attackers chose a target likely to injure tourists, as the bus was outside one of Cairo's most popular tourist sites, the Egyptian Museum.

26 tourists were wounded when the attack occurred and those killed were burned to death.

Both men face the death penalty, which in Egypt is usually carried out by hanging.

The defendants can only appeal to President Hosni Mubarak for clemency.

The trial resumes on November 22.

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