Posted on 06/23/2013 6:43:54 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Adel al-Khayat, a member of a radical Islamist party linked to a massacre that killed 58 tourists in Luxor in 1997, resigned as the city’s governor on Sunday, just a week after his controversial appointment to the post by President Mohammed Morsi.
The new governor of Egypt’s Luxor province, controversially appointed last week despite belonging to a hardline Islamist group that killed 58 tourists there in 1997, announced his resignation on Sunday.
“We will not accept that one drop of blood be spilt because of a position that I did not personally aspire to at any time,” Adel Mohamed al-Khayat said in a news conference, saying the decision had been made after consultations with his party.
A member of al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, which mounted campaigns against Egypt’s military rulers and tourist industry at various times from the 1970s to 1990s, al-Khayat was appointed a week ago by President Mohamed Mursi in a move that showed the growing importance of al-Gamaa as an ally of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Khayat had denied any personal role in militant attacks, having worked as a civil servant after a brief association with al-Gamaa as a student.
But his appointment prompted uproar in Luxor, in the southern heartlands of al-Gamaa support. Workers in the tourist industry around its pharaonic temples feared the new governor could put off visitors at a time when business is already poor due to continued unrest following the 2011 revolution.
Well, that’s a relief. I was stunned that Morsi even went so far as to appoint him.
These tourists were not all killed outright: some of them were killed very sadistically and essentially tortured to death.
Adel al-Khayat, a member of a radical Islamist party linked to a massacre that killed 58 tourists in Luxor in 1997, resigned as the city’s governor on Sunday, just a week after his controversial appointment to the post by President Mohammed Morsi.
Meanwhile in Pakistan http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3034521/posts
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