AN Egyptian emergency state security court sentenced 26 men linked to Lebanon's Shi'ite Hizbollah group to jail terms ranging from six months to life sentences. The rulings cannot be appealed. Three of the defendants, including the group's Lebanese leader, Mohamed Qiblan, were convicted in absentia and received life sentences. The rest of the group, including 18 Egyptians, one Sudanese, West Bank Palestinians and Lebanese national Sami Shehab, were handed sentences ranging from six months to 15 years. The group was charged with planning attacks on tourists and shipping in the Suez Canal, and sending operatives and explosives to Gaza to aid militants there, according to the source. The courtroom erupted with cries of shock at the sentences from the convicted and their relatives, when the presiding judge Adel Abdel-Salam Gomaa pronounced the verdicts at Cairo's emergency court, located in the newly established city of New Cairo. The trial, which started in August 2009, is the first time Egypt has prosecuted alleged Hizbollah operatives. In April of that year, Egyptian security officials said they had uncovered a Hizbollah cell plotting to destabilise the country. Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has admitted to sending an agent to supervise weapons shipments to the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, but he has denied seeking to undermine Egypt's security. "The group intended to strike Egypt's economy, destroy the bonds between its people and create chaos and instability throughout the country," Gomaa declared in the verdict. Defence lawyer Montasser Zayat said three of those convicted received a life sentence, which he said in Egyptian law was equivalent to 25 years. "This verdict is cruel and does not fit with the documents put forward," Zayat said. “No appeal would be possible but President Hosni Mubarak would be able to reduce any of the sentences if he chose,” he added Rights groups say Egypt has used "exceptional" courts like emergency and military courts to secure guilty verdicts and point to swift and often harsh sentences passed by the courts against Islamist militants in the 1990s. Egypt's relations with Hizbollah have been strained since the group called Egypt a "partner in crime" with Israel against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, said Nasrallah was trying to create chaos in the region to serve the interests of others, in an apparent reference to Iran. Cairo has long had strained relations with Tehran and the two countries do not have full diplomatic ties. Nasrallah had said that no more than 10 people had co operated with Shehab, rather than the 26 Egypt had accused. Prosecutors said Hizbollah had told the men to collect intelligence from villages along the Egypt-Gaza border, tourist sites and the Suez Canal. The group had received equipment from Hizbollah, and had also been tasked with spreading Shia ideology in the predominantly Sunni country, the Egyptian Government said. At the start of the trial, it was reported that at least one of the accused said he had been tortured while in Egyptian custody.
