U.S.-designated terrorist sentenced to life by Egyptian Court
On Wednesday, an Egyptian court sentenced a U.S.-designated terrorist suspected of links to al-Qaeda to life in prison.
Muhammad Jamal el-Kashif, a 50-year-old militant designated as a terrorist by the U.S. State Department and added to a U.N. sanctions list of individuals suspected of links to al-Qaeda, was among 12 militants charged with plotting attacks against police, military, foreign missions and ships passing through the Suez Canal.
El-Kashif, arrested in Egypt in 2012, is accused of setting up training camps for militants in Egypt and Libya. The U.S. State Department designated him a terrorist in 2013, on grounds that he had trained in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and returned to Egypt in the 1990s when an Islamic insurgency against Mubarak was peaking.
The U.N. said he is reported to have been involved in the September 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and other staff.