TEHRAN, 7 December 2004 — Iran yesterday denied that it had extradited to Egypt a leader of the militant Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said the reports of that Iran had handed over Moustafa Hamza were “void of any reality.”
“Such a person is not present in the Islamic Republic of Iran and reports regarding his extradition to the Egyptians are untrue,” Asefi told reporters.
On Sunday, an Egyptian security official and an Islamic activist said Hamza, the alleged mastermind of a 1995 assassination attempt on President Hosni Mubarak, was in Egyptian custody after being turned over by Iran.
Hamza, 48, had been widely believed to be under house arrest in Iran since October 2003.
Based on certain reports, Hamza, who was in charge of the military offshoot of Egyptian Islamic Group in the mid-1980s, masterminded operations against his government.
Egyptian courts have sentenced Abu Hamza to three death sentences on charges of involvement in terrorist operations in Afghanistan in 1992 and in Sudan in 1995 and also for attempt on life of the country’s president during his visit to Ethiopia.
