Court turns down appeal on Hezbollah suspects' detention

Cairo: A criminal court in Cairo has turned down an appeal against the detention of several Arab nationals accused of having been recruited by the Lebanese group Hezbollah to carry out terror attacks in Egypt.

The lawyers for the defendants had appealed against an order by the Egyptian Minister of the Interior to detain them since last December. The court turned down the appeal on Tuesday and did not give reasons.

Early in April, Egyptian authorities announced arresting Egyptian, Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese nationals, who had been allegedly assigned by Iran-backed Hezbollah to attack Israeli tourists Egypt.

The suspects, many of them still at large, also face charges of espionage and planning to overthrow the regime.

"The security agencies have arrested the group since last December and kept them under the custody of the State Security authorities for no good reason," said Abdel Moneim Maqsoud, a chief lawyer for the defendants.

He added that authorities have not yet finished interrogating the suspects. "The last stage in investigations will be to question witnesses for prosecution before the case is referred to court," he said.

Under an emergency law, in force in Egypt since 1981, police have the power to detain suspects.