Egypt said that dangerous terrorist Hesham El-Ashmawy, who was handed over to Egyptian authorities last month, is currently being tried in five cases where he had previously received sentences in absentia, according to informed sources. El-Ashmawy faces charges of carrying out terrorist operations against the army, police forces and civilians. According to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, El-Ashmawy is being retried under the criminal procedure law, which stipulates that he must be retried before a military court. Last May, Egypt secured the transfer of El-Ashmawy from his detention in Libya back to Egypt, with the highly secured transfer operation executed by various Egyptian special forces branches. El-Ashmawy was captured by the LNA in October 2018 in Libya's Eastern city of Derna as the forces liberated the city. El-Ashmawy, who was Egypt's top wanted terrorist over the past six years, was born in 1978 and graduated in 2000 from the military academy. In 2007, a military court transferred El-Ashmawy to an administrative post before his dismissal from the army in 2011. He later joined the North Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis terrorist group. El-Ashmawy, also known as Abu Omar El-Mohager (the immigrant), is considered one of the most dangerous terrorists linked to attacks in Egypt. El-Ashmawy is believed to have been involved in an assassination attempt on former Egyptian Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, the murder of top prosecutor Hisham Barakat, as well as the attack on Egyptian border guards in February 2015, which resulted in the death of 29 Armed Forces personnel. He is also believed to be behind a deadly attack on Christian pilgrims in Upper Egypt's Minya governorate in May 2017, which killed 29 people. In January 2015, his group was suspected of staging a multi-pronged attack on the headquarters of the Army Battalion 101 Headquarters in El-Arish in North Sinai, which killed 30 soldiers and officers. An Egyptian military court sentenced him in absentia, along with 13 other terrorists, to death over the New Valley massacre in Farafra on 19 July 2014, where 22 border guards were killed.
