Militant’s burial raises Egyptian village’s hackles

Locals of an Egyptian Delta village have reacted with anger at the burial of Adel Habara, a leading hardliner, in the village’s cemetery.

Habara, 40, was executed by hanging in a Cairo prison on Thursday after he was convicted of killing 25 Egyptian policemen in Sinai in August 2013. His execution came after President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi endorsed the procedure.

After his hanging, Habara’s body was handed over to his family for burial in his Delta hometown of Al Sharqia. He was buried at a low-key funeral ceremony in the village of Al Manasterly in Al Sharqia, a move that was denounced by the village’s residents.

“Al Manasterly is not Habara’s village. He had no relatives in the village. So, why was he buried there? He is a terrorist,” said Hamed Hussain, a brother of an Egyptian soldier killed in a separate terror attack in Sinai in 2013.

Hamed’s anger mounted after learning that Habara was buried a few metres from his brother’s grave.

“A killer terrorist has no right to be buried next to a martyr who sacrificed his life for his country,” Hamed told private newspaper Al Masry Al Youm.

The village’s mayor Mohammad Ahmad agreed. “The village’s people feel angry and dismayed because of the burial of this terrorist in their cemetery. He is not a son of their village.”

Angry inhabitants called for exhuming Habara’s body for reburial elsewhere.

A security official defended the burial of Habara in Al Manasterly, not his home village of Al Aharaz.

“He was buried there after people of Al Ahraz refused to let him lie in their cemetery,” the official said. “We did not know that a martyr from the Armed Forces was buried in Al Manasterly,” the official added on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

He did not say if reburial of Habara is possible.

Habara was arrested a month after the deadly attack on the policemen in Sinai. He is seen as a senior leader in the Ansar Bait Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), a Sinai-based radical group that has sworn loyalty to Daesh.

The group has claimed responsibility for most deadly attacks that have hit Egypt since the army’s 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi following massive protests against his one-year rule.

Three days before his hanging, a death sentence handed down to Habara for killing a policeman in Al Sharqia in 2012 was also upheld.

Habara’s execution was the eighth of a militant in Egypt since Mursi’s toppling.

In March 2015, a loyalist of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood was hanged after he was convicted of throwing people off a building during Islamists’ violence that followed Mursi’s ouster.

Two months later, six Egyptians were executed for attacks on security forces.

source: GULF NEWS