Kuwait City: Kuwait has extradited to Egypt eight wanted fugitives linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported on Sunday.
The eight, all Egyptians, were arrested earlier this week by Kuwaiti authorities after they had been sentenced to jail terms in the homeland on terrorism-related charges.
They were handed over to Cairo on Saturday in two groups in response to a request from Egyptian authorities under extradition pacts between the two countries, the paper said.
“Those arrested constituted an important part of financing sources of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,” Al Rai quoted security sources as saying.
They were given jail terms varying from five to 15 years after they were tried in absentia in the homeland in cases related to involvement in terrorism and riot acts that Egypt experienced following security forces’ dispersal of a Brotherhood protest camp in Cairo in August 2013, the sources added.
One key case is related to the 2015 assassination of Egypt’s then chief prosecutor Hesham Barakat.
Those arrested in Kuwait are aged between 32 to 56. The head of the group in Kuwait was identified as Abu Bakr Al Fayoumi, who was among the eight.
Al Fayoumi, 36, had encouraged other Brotherhood followers, facing security threats in Egypt, to come to Kuwait, calling it a “safe haven,” the sources said.
Five others, also wanted in Egypt, were able to leave Kuwait for Qatar and Turkey, which are key backers of the Brotherhood, according to the same sources.
Egypt has seen a spate of militant attacks since the army’s mid-2013 overthrow of President Mohammad Mursi, a senior Brotherhood official, following enormous street protests against his rule.
Later that year, Egyptian authorities designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.
