The Libyan National Army (LNA) transferred to Cairo top Egyptian terrorist Hisahm al-Ashmawy, reported state television on Wednesday.
Ashmawy, a former Egyptian special forces officer, was apprehended in the Libyan city of Derna late last year and has been long sought by Cairo on charges of orchestrating a deadly desert ambush on police and other high-profile attacks.
At least two private Egyptian television channels showed live footage of the military aircraft landing in Cairo airport and a presenter climbed inside to film a blindfolded and ear-muffed Ashmawy.
Another unidentified detainee could also be seen handcuffed, blindfolded and ear-muffed. Two intelligence sources told Reuters the man was Safwat Zeidan, Ashmawy’s personal guard.
In his first comments on the transfer, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said in a tweet: “The war on terrorism has not ended and will not end before the right of every martyr is restored.”
The transfer came following a visit by Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel to Benghazi where he met with LNA commander Khalifa Haftar.
Ashmway had sought refuge in Derna to operate against the Egyptian government after the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. He attempted to form the so-called “Free Egyptian Army” that was comprised of radicalized Egyptians. He encountered complications when Egyptian terrorists from Syria and Iraq joined the group.
Libyan and Egyptian sources said that the group was dissolved some two years ago.
Ashmawy then formed the Ansar al-Islam network, which claimed responsibility for an ambush against police in Egypt’s Western Desert in 2017. Egyptian officials also accuse the network, which they link to al-Qaeda, of an assassination attempt on a former Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim in 2013.
Ashmawy has been convicted in absentia to death in Egypt for attacks in Egypt, including a 2014 raid in which 22 Egyptian military border guards were killed near the frontier with Libya.
