Egypt's security forces arrested Al Jamaa Al Islamiya's leading member Essam Derbala early Wednesday in Upper Egypt's Qena Governorate, Al Bawaba News reported. According to the authorities, the Islamist leader was planning to flee the country heading for Sudan. "Derbala was clothed in Bedouin garb. He was arrested at home in Qena city, while he was preparing to flee to Sudan by land", Gen. Adel Abdel Azim, head of Qena Security Directorate, said. Abdel Azim asserted that Derbala had been under surveillance for three days in cooperation with the Homeland Security officers. Derbala faces charges of joining a terrorist group, inciting violence against security forces during the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in and planning for the explosion that hit North Sinai's Al Arish in 2014, Abdel Azim added. Essam Derbala is an extremist Islamist, who participated in the brutal insurgency that wreaked havoc in Egypt from 1992 to 1997. He was arrested in 1981 after the assassination of late president Anwar Al Sadat. In November 2006, Derbala was released as part of a larger project by the Egyptian government to rehabilitate and release old Jamaa Al Islamiya members. He joined the "Ousted Alliance" after the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, and incited the Islamist group's members to carry out violent attacks against security personnel.
