Cairo, Asharq al-Awsat — Two years after releasing Karam Zuhdi, the amir of the Islamic Group (IG) in Egypt, &#34Asharq al-Awsat&#34 learned that the Egyptian authorities recentley released two of the IG”s most prominent jailed leaders. One of them is Najih Ibrahim, the IG”s second in command and ideologue who oversaw during the past years the books that reviewed the group”s ideologies, and the second is Fuad al-Dawalibi, member of the group”s Shura Council.

Najih Ibrahim, who is a doctor, served a life sentence in the case of the Asyut incidents that followed the assassination of late President Anwar al-Sadat. He is one of the group”s founders in Upper Egypt and is regarded as its leading ideologue. He was one of the signatories of the initiative to stop the violence in 1997 and then helped write the ideological reviews books that the IG published before four years and followed it with other books that Ibrahim edited. Fuad al-Dawalibi is one of the IG”s strongest men and one of the first to sign the initiative to stop the violence. He served 12 years in the Al-Sadat assassination case.

The Egyptian authorities had already released several of the group”s leaders after lengthy dialogues and the leaders” backing down on the ideas of violence. They included Shura Council members Karam Zuhdi, Hamdi Abd-al-Rahman, Usamah Hafiz, and Mahmud Shu”ayb.

Though fundamentalist circles in Egypt welcomed the release of Ibrahim and Al-Dawalibi, Nizar Ghurab, the lawyer for former Jihad leader Abbud al-Zumur and his cousin Tariq al-Zumur lodged a complaint with Justice Minister Counselor Mahmud Abu-al-Layl, the chairman of the Higher Judicial Council, against the Egyptian prosecutor for using double standards in justice by not releasing his clients Abbud and Tariq even though a final sentence was issued in favor of Tariq to be released but was not implemented. Ghurab said: Abbud al-Zumur was given a life sentence and the court confirmed he had to serve it all his life. Yet it released Najih Ibrahim who had a similar sentence passed against him and this is double standards. The law is used for political oppression and it appears that justice has several faces even though the penalty is the same. He added that a military court sentenced Al-Dawalibi to 15 years in prison and a criminal court upheld it and yet he was released after the military sentence was dropped while Tariq al-Zumur was ordered to be released from a 22-year sentence and this is a blatant paradox.