A military court Thursday convicted and sentenced to die nine men accused of trying to assassinate Egypt's prime minister in a campaign to topple the secular government and install an Islamic state.
Prime Minister Atef Sedki escaped unhurt, but a 12-year-old schoolgirl was killed and 21 other people were wounded when a bomb exploded on Nov. 25 as Sedki's motorcade was leaving his home.The Jihad group, which assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981, claimed responsibility for the attack, the third against a Cabinet minister last year. The group considers Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman as its spiritual leader. The blind Egyptian cleric is being held in the United States on charges he masterminded the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993.
Also Thursday, an army lieutenant and a conscript were executed by a firing squad for plotting to assassinate President Hosni Mu-bar-ak in November.
As with their trial, held earlier this year, no announcement was made of their execution at an undisclosed location in northern Egypt. The two soldiers were members of the militant al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, and any connection between the military and Muslim extremists is highly sensitive.
The two soldiers and four other Muslim extremists were convicted of plotting to plant mines at a military airfield in Sidi Barrani on the northwest Egyptian coast where Mubarak was to have visited.