Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday commuted a 15-year prison sentence given to an Egyptian tour guide for kidnapping four German tourists in a bid to win a custody battle with his estranged wife.
Officials quoted by AFP said the term, handed down in August by a high state security court operating under emergency laws in force since 1981, was cut from 15 to 10 years of hard labor.
Mubarak also cut one year off the five-year sentences of two accomplices, but the one-year terms of two others convicted in the case were upheld, said the agency.
Key hostage-taker Ibrahim Ali Al Sayyed Moussa could have been given life in prison. He had been seeking the return of his sons, aged eight and three, from Germany where they live with his estranged German wife.
The kidnapping took place last March in the tourist city of Luxor in southern Egypt. The ordeal of the hostages, held for almost four days at gun-point, ended when security forces convinced Moussa to surrender without harming the Germans.
State security court prosecutor Sameh Seif told the court in mid-June that Moussa had tried to kill his wife in 1988.
Moussa "attempted in 1988 to kill his ex-wife, a German national, who wanted a divorce after five years of marriage. He was sentenced at the time to a prison term, but had fled,” Deif told the court, cited by the agency – Albawaba.com
