The trial of two members of the fundamentalist Egyptian movement Jamaa Islamiya accused of murdering a government secret agent in 1994 was pushed back to Dec. 23 on Monday, a court source told AFP.
The trial was delayed over a procedural error, as the prosecutor's office forgot to notify one of the accused, Mahmoud Al Fuli, of the upcoming court proceedings, the same source said.
The other accused, Rifaat Zidane, is on the run and will be tried in absentia.
The two Islamists were summoned to appear at the end of July. They are accused of "belonging to an illegal organization which calls for the suspension of the Constitution by recourse to force, as well as the liquidation of public figures and police officers."
Rifaat Zidane led the military wing of Jamaa Islamiya in the southern province of Minya during the 1990s, according to the police.
He and Mahmoud Al Fuli are accused of killing secret agent Ali Sabet, in an attack organized with two other members of the fundamentalist organization in 1994 at Dayrut, in the Upper Egyptian province of Assiut.
Al Fuli, who is in detention, turned himself in to the police in 1994.
The Jamaa Islamiya is viewed as the largest armed Egyptian fundamentalist group and claimed responsibility for the 1997 attack in Luxor which left 58 tourists dead. However, in 1999, it renounced violence.
Meanwhile, a mass trial of 94 suspected terrorists was adjourned till Wednesday.
The defendants, some of whom were arrested in May, include one who holds both US and Egyptian nationality, another Egyptian with German citizenship and a third with Dutch citizenship, the security sources said.
One Yemeni and four men from the southern Russian republic of Daghistan are also among the accused.
Seven men were also indicted in absentia, reports said – Albawaba.com
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