The release of dozens of Egyptian prisoners in Israeli jails appears on the cards, reports Doaa El-Bey Newspapers ran conflicting news about the imminent release of Egyptian prisoners in Israeli jails in return for an Israeli Bedouin. The daily Al-Ahram reported on Saturday that negotiations for a prisoner swap that would see some 63 Egyptians imprisoned in Israel freed in exchange for Israeli Bedouin Ouda Tarabin were in their final stages. The newspaper added that negotiations could be completed within hours. The report quoted Egyptian MP representing northern Sinai Abdallah Abu Khama as saying that Egypt was making last ditch efforts to increase the number of prisoners included in the deal. He also noted that the negotiations to release Tarabin had yet to yield final results. However, Abu Khama denied reports in the daily Al-Shorouk which quoted the governor of North Sinai as saying that whatever is published on the deal being close to conclusion was incorrect. Security sources quoted by the same newspaper said a deal has been delayed because the Egyptian side asked for an increase in Egyptian security forces in the eastern region of Sinai, a request Israel turned down. Other sources said the deal was derailed due to a decision taken by Egypt earlier to stop exporting gas to Israel. Mahmoud Lotfi, a lawyer, human rights activist and head of the campaign to defend Egyptian prisoners in Israeli jails, told Al-Ahram Weekly by phone that he had not heard anything about an imminent deal from the families of the prisoners. "I am in constant contact with the prisoners' families and nobody told me about any negotiations regarding a deal," Lotfi said. There were 81 prisoners in Israeli jails before 25 were released in the Ilan Grapel deal, Lotfi explained. The remaining 56 are still in Israeli jails for inter-border smuggling and crossing borders. Grapel is an Israeli-American who was accused by Egypt of spying for the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Lotfi said there were three prisoners taken by the Israelis following the October 1973 War and that nothing had been heard from them since. A prison source said they were possibly in an elderly nursing home. Tarabin has been held in Egypt since 1999 when he was sentenced in absentia under the country's emergency law to 15 years in prison for espionage. The Tarabin Bedouin are a large tribe spread across the Negev and Sinai. Since the mid-1990s the tribe has been heavily involved in smuggling, both across the Egypt-Israel border and to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government and Tarabin's family have rejected accusations of espionage as baseless, and the prisoner's brother maintains he crossed into Egypt merely to visit their sister in Arish. In October last year, Egypt and Israel swapped Grapel for 25 Egyptian prisoners in Israel including three minors accused of infiltrating the borders. Grapel was arrested in Cairo earlier last year and was accused of spying for Israel and sowing sectarian chaos in Egypt following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak. Grapel repeatedly visited Tahrir Square during the protests. A historic deal involving Israel was sealed with the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians. The first phase included the release of 477 prisoners, 27 of which were females, in October 2011. The remaining 550 were freed in the second phase a month later. In 1996 Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Druse textile worker, was sentenced in Egypt to 15 years of hard labour after being convicted of espionage, a charge both he and the Israeli government firmly denied. Following the intervention of the Shin Bet, the Israel security agency, Azzam was released in 2004 in exchange for six Egyptians convicted of planning terror attacks.
