CAIRO - A celebrated historian recently dropped a bombshell by denying that Khaled el-Islamboli, the prime assassin of late President Anwar el-Sadat, was shot by firing squad. Prof. Gamal Shakra shocked the nation and el-Sadat's family by claiming that el-Islamboli is still alive. People have been asking questions about Sadat's assassination, in the wake of the collapse of Hosni Mubarak's regime, with the late President's daughter, Rokayya, announcing that Mubarak was one of the masterminds behind her father's killing. Mubarak, who was Sadat's Vice President, was sitting next to the late President when the assassins shot him during a military parade on October 6, 1981. Although several other VIPs were killed, Mubarak miraculously survived. The historian says that he obtained his astonishing information from a cab driver he came across one day. Shakra told Radio & Television magazine that the cabbie was in military prison with el-Islamboli and Hussein Abbas (also killed by firing squad). “The driver told me that Sadat's two assassins [sentenced to death by firing squad because they were military men] were spared when two other inmates, sentenced to death for other crimes, were shot instead of them,” the historian said. Describing the taxi driver as a reliable source, the historian also quoted him as saying that the prison governor co-planned the switch. Traumatised by what he told him, the historian invited the driver to dinner at his home, so he could tell him more about the big secret he'd kept to himself for 30 years. The driver allegedly confessed that, after being released from military prison, he decided to keep his mouth shut, otherwise he'd be killed. “El-Islamboli and Abbas were spirited out of the jail and travelled to Saudi Arabia,” he explained. Meanwhile, Sadat's daughter has confirmed that she bumped into el-Islamboli while paying a visit to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. “I was performing the Hajj [Major Pilgrimage] when I ran into the killer of my father,” Rukayya told a television programme about two weeks ago. “There was no mistaking him, as I've never forgotten the faces of my father's assassins since their trial. “There are some people, who were close to Sadat and his Vice-President [Mubarak], who will corroborate my story that el-Islamboli was rewarded ��" not punished ��" for killing my father.” Two of the masterminds of Sadat's assassination, Aboud el-Zomor and his cousin Tareq, were released from jail last month after serving 30 years for their role in a crime which shocked Egypt and the international community. El-Zomor, who was an army brigadier, and his cousin belong to the militant Al-Jihad (Holy War), which is an offshoot of the fundamentalist Jamaaa Islamiya (Islamic Group). Sadat was accused of being a kafir (infidel), after he shook hands with Israelis and signed a peace treaty, which ended decades of war between Egypt and the Jewish state.
