Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Egypt to revoke citizenship of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar and hundreds of other Palestinians

(JPost) Egypt plans to revoke the citizenship granted by former president Mohamed Morsi of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar and 800 other people, mostly Palestinians, an Egyptian newspaper reported.

Security sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the committee established to review all of the decisions issued by Morsi such as freeing prisoners and granting citizenship finished its work, submitting a report to Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb.

The report called for revoking the citizenship of around 800 people that did not meet the conditions necessary, including Palestinians that were nationalized based on fraud and forgery in their documentation.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, claimed the sources, requested a detailed report on the rumored granting of citizenship of up to 13,000 Palestinians under Morsi. Sisi wants to know whether members of extremist Islamist groups were also nationalized.

In addition, the Ministry of Interior is reviewing all gun licenses issued under Morsi’s reign, which includes a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders that are imprisoned and awaiting trial. The Ministry has begun canceling these licenses, said the sources.