Al-Qaeda second man arrested POLICE FORCES arrested the senior Islamist militant Tharwat Shehata, who is close to Al-Qaeda Chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri, according to security officials on Monday. He was arrested in the 10th October City in Sharqiyah Governorate. Shehata had been sentenced to death in absentia in the 1990s for the attempted assassination of a minister at that time. He is believed to have been a deputy to Zawahiri when he ran the Egyptian Islamic Jihad before joining forces with former Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. Earlier, Shehata was reportedly detained in Iran following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks in 2001, which routed Al-Qaeda and forced its leaders into hiding. Egyptian officials said he had been in Libya and then Turkey before returning to his homeland. Al-Qaeda-inspired militants have killed almost 500 Egyptian policemen and soldiers in attacks since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July. The arrest comes just one day after it was announced that Al-Zawahiri's brother will stand trial with 67 others for forming a “terrorist group” and plotting attacks after Morsi's ouster. Mohamed Al-Zawahiri was arrested last August, a month after Morsi's ouster, by the army, and has been called to trial by the state prosecutor. Zawahiri and the other suspects are accused of having set up an “Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group” that plotted attacks against government installations, security personnel and members of Egypt's Christian community, according to MENA. Supporting Al-Jazeera journalists A GROUP of journalists from around the globe launched an online campaign on Monday calling for the release of three Al-Jazeera journalists who have been detained in Egypt for over three months. The campaign on Twitter that went viral on Twitter marked 100 days since Peter Greste, Fahmi Fadel and Baher Mohamed have been in prison after being arrested last December on charges of aiding a terrorist organisation – a reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. They are currently facing trial at a Cairo criminal court along with 17 other defendants. On Monday – under the hashtag #FreeAJstaff – the campaign featured journalists from the BBC and various Al-Jazeera channels, who posted photos on Twitter with their mouths covered with tape while holding banners reading “Free AJStaff” and “Journalism is not crime”. Hundreds of BBC journalists and reporters gathered outside the BBC building in London for a minute of silence in solidarity with the Al-Jazeera reporters imprisoned in Egypt as well as other journalists detained around the world. The BBC staff held photos of Greste, Fadel and Mohamed as well as the Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Abdallah Al-Shami, who was arrested during the violent dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adaweya protest camp in August and has not yet been charged. Al-Shami has been on hunger strike for 76 days in protest of his detention without charge, according to his family, who have called for his release. Al-Jazeera's Cairo offices have been closed down since 3 July, when they were raided by security forces in the immediate aftermath of the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood. The only Al-Jazeera-affiliated channel to have been banned by court order is Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr. Monday's efforts are not the first calling for the release of Greste, Fadel and Fahmi, whose detention has sparked an international outcry and led to condemnation by human rights groups and media organisations. They were denied bail on 30 March and their trial has been adjourned to 10 April. Gays jailed A COURT in Egypt sentenced four men to up to eight years in prison on Monday for practicing homosexuality, a judicial official said. Prosecutors had accused the men of holding “deviant parties” and dressing in women's clothes. Three were sentenced to eight years and the fourth to three years in prison. Prosecutors have used a law banning “debauchery” to try homosexuals in the past. Those accused of homosexuality are often forced to undergo medical tests to establish they are “habitual” gays, a practice rights groups have decried as abusive.
