Egypt Sunday sentenced to life two men
linked to the Islamic State group for
plotting an attack on a Red Sea resort hotel
during which three tourists were hurt, a
court official said
The men armed with knives stormed the
restaurant of the Bella Vista hotel in Hurghada
last January as tourists were having dinner,
slightly wounding an elderly Austrian couple and
a Swedish tourist.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack,
during which police shot dead one of the
assailants, Mohamad Hassan Mohamed
Mahfouz, and wounded the other, Mohamed
Magdy Abul Kheir .
The prosecution said that the pair had plotted
the attack along with fellow Egyptian Ahmad
Abdel Salam Mansour , identified as an Islamic
State group jihadist based in Syria where IS is
active.
The court official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said that Abul Kheir was present in
court for the verdict while Mansour was
sentenced to life in absentia.
According to the prosecution, Mansour incited
the other two to carry out attacks against
tourists in Hurghada and to join the IS jihadist
group.
The IS Egyptian affiliate is waging an insurgency
in the north of the Sinai Peninsula that has killed
hundreds of policemen and soldiers.
The jihadists have claimed attacks on other
targets in Egypt, including a bomb attack on a
Cairo church this month that killed 27 people.
IS said it is also behind the October 2015
bombing of a Russian airliner carrying
holidaymakers from the Sharm el-Sheikh Red
Sea resort, an attack that killed all 224 people on
board and that crippled Egypt's tourism industry
and economy.
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