CAIRO - Members of a cell belonging to the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizbollah who were convicted of plotting attacks in Egypt were among the escapees in a weekend prison break, an Egyptian security official said. The 22-member cell fled on Sunday along with members of Palestinian group Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and thousands of other convicts during a mass breakout amid anti-Government protests in Egypt, added the official. The Hizbollah convicts escaped from Wadi el-Natroun prison, north of Cairo after guards abandoned their posts. Last April, a Cairo court handed down stiff prison sentences to 26 people in connection with a plot to carry out attacks on the Suez Canal and Sinai resorts. Four were sentenced in absentia. At least six Palestinians imprisoned in Egypt returned to Gaza in the past week after thousands broke out of jails across the country amid a police vaccume and chaos sparked by nationwide riots demanding end to President Hosni Mubarak's regime. Human Rights Watch said one prisoner described heavy shooting during an escape from another prison, near Egypt's Libyan border. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was holding contacts with Egyptian authorities to secure the release of an Israeli engineer arrested in the Egyptian city of Suez. "Four Israeli journalists detained in Al Tahrir Square in central Cairo were released and contacts are underway to set free an Israeli engineer held in Suez," said a Foreign Ministry statement carried by Israeli media. Egypt's official television said it was not clear why the young Israeli engineer named Tomer Golan was arrested, adding that an investigation was under way by the Egyptian military prosecutors. Egyptian police, meanwhile, arrested more 297 prisoners who fled prison cells on Sunday as search was underway for other escapees. "After we detained 160 fugitive prisoners on Wednesday, more 297 were held in 18 governorates on Thursday," said a security official. He added that around 431 guns from different kinds were seized. After a security breakdown on Saturday, prisoners escaped from jails (with assistance, it is assumed) and many took advantage of the lack of security that ensued. A number of hight-profile prisoners have escaped from Egyptian jails over the last week as law and order collapsed when mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak began and police were temporarily withdrawn from the streets.
