Ashmawy extradited under 1992 judicial cooperation agreement

CAIRO - 29 May 2019: The National Libyan Army (NLA) extradited on Tuesday terrorists Hesham Ashmawy and Ali Abdel Moaty to Egypt under the Judicial Cooperation Agreement on Civil and Penal Articles between both countries.

The agreement was signed in 1992, and comprises 93 articles. Article 49 provides, “Both parties shall extradite to each other individuals facing charges by entitled entities and convicts sentenced by the judicial authorities of the party requesting the extradition in accordance with the rules and conditions in this section.”

Article 50 specifies that the defendants or convicts must be facing penalties of at least one year in prison.

Ashmawy, who was an officer at the Egyptian Armed Forces, was dismissed from service in 2011 by a military court ruling. That is because he adopted an extremist ideology after the death of his father in 2005.

In 2012, he formed a terrorist cell that had started with four discharged officers before recruiting dozens of Takfiri elements. The cell joined afterwards Ansar Bait al-Maqdes group, which stands behind many terror attacks in North Sinai among others.

Ashmawy, a former commando, is implicated in the assassination attempt that targeted former Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim in 2013, opening fire on a Border Guard ambush in Farafra killing 28 officers and soldiers in 2014, the assassination of late Public Prosecutor Hesham Barakat in 2015, and, the attack on a security patrol in Wahat area western Cairo in 2017. The assault resulted in the death of 16 and the abduction of one officer who was later freed by a special force operation to be the only survivor.

In December 2017, Western Cairo Military Criminal Court sentenced Ashmawy and 13 others to death in the Farafra lawsuit that included 155 defendants. Eighty-nine of those were prosecuted in absentia including Ashmawy. In October 2018, the NLA announced the arrest of Ashmawy in Libya.