Muhammad al-Zawahiri

Muhammad Rabee al-Zawahiri (born 1953)^[1][2] was sentenced to death by an Egyptian court, but instead continues to be held and interrogated by Egyptian security forces. He was one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 declaration of a War on Terror.^[3]

He is the younger brother of militant leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Life

A 1974 graduate of the engineering college at Cairo University,^[2][4] al-Zawahiri moved to Saudi Arabia and took work with a construction firm.^[4]

In 1981, his name was among those indicted in absentia for the assassination of Anwar Sadat after his brother implicated him in recruiting the Egyptians Mustafa Kamel Mustafa and Abdel Hadi al-Tunsi while living in Saudi Arabia,^[1] but he was found not guilty of the charge.^[1][4] He joined the World Islamic Relief Organization, and traveled to Indonesia, Bosnia and Malawi where he helped build schools and medical clinics.^[4]

Married with six children, he moved to Yemen with his family, and then joined his older brother in Khartoum, where al-Jihad had begun to congregate. But after the group was forced to leave, following the execution of the teenaged son of Ahmad Salama Mabruk, Ayman went to Afghanistan while Muhammad took his family back to Yemen and began working with engineering contractors.^[4]

Arrest

His Yemeni contractor work saw him frequently travel to the United Arab Emirates, but following his in absentia conviction in the Returnees from Albania trial, he was arrested in March or April 1999 and renditioned to Cairo.^[4][5] Here he was accused of conspiring with Khaled Abdul Samee.^[1]

His wife didn't contact the Egyptian embassy in Sanaa until October, and they confirmed his arrest. She was granted permission to return to Cairo with the children herself, and was detained and interrogated for three days before being released.^[4]

His younger brother, Hussain, was arrested while driving to work, while working at Multidiscovery, a Malaysian construction firm in late 1999 in a joint operation involving the CIA, Egyptian intelligence and Malaysian security forces.^[4]

Presumed death and later life

For several years, no news was released on Muhammad and his family presumed he had been executed in accordance with the sentence from the trial. In October 2001, the United States requested a sample of his DNA to match against bodies found in Afghan caves hoping to identify one of the bodies as belonging to his older brother.^[4]

In February 2004, the al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper announced that they had discovered he was still alive and being held in the Tora prison, which was confirmed the following month by the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior, who also stated that he could be visited by his family in March.^[4] It was discovered that he had been beaten and tortured for nearly fives years by the Mukhabarat, and Egypt announced they were re-convening a new tribunal to look at his case.^[4]

In April 2007, he and other Islamists pushed for a review of their sentences and sought commutation based on revising their previously-held beliefs in the necessity of terrorism. He was represented by lawyer Montasser el-Zayat.^[5]

In March 2011 he was released from prison in Egypt, however he was later re-arrested.^{[6][citation needed]}

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} al-Zayat, Montasser, "The Road to al-Qaeda", 2002
2. ^ ^{a b} Zawahiri, Zayman al-. As-Sahab, The Open Meeting with Al-Zawahiri, 2008
3. ^ Mother Jones, Disappearing Act: Rendition by the Numbers, March 3, 2008
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Human Rights Watch, Chapter VI: Muhammad al-Zawahiri and Hussain al-Zawahiri
5. ^ ^{a b} Top Al Qaeda Ideolgue and Zawahiri's Brother to Denounce Violence, AP, 20 April 2007
6. ^ "Egypt rearrests Zawahiri's brother after release". Reuters. 20 March 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/20/us-egypt-zawahiri-idUSTRE72J1FQ20110320. Retrieved 24 June 2011. 

Persondata
Name	al-Zawahiri, Muhammad
Alternative names
Short description	Egyptian prisoner
Date of birth	1953
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death