CAIRO (AFP) — Egypt's interior ministry has agreed to pay compensation to Islamists detained without trial or kept in jail during the 1990s despite obtaining release orders, a ministry source said on Sunday.
"The minister has agreed to pay a total of 10 million Egyptian pounds (1.87 million dollars) to around 1,000 members of the Gama'a Islamiyya (Islamist organisation) who won court cases against the ministry," the source told AFP.
"The Islamists took the ministry to court after they were detained without trial or held in prison despite release orders," the source added.
Quoting lawyers for the Islamists, the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm said the compensation would be 25 million Egyptian pounds (4.7 million dollars).
The paper added that the ministry had refused to compensate thousands more who had also sued.
A wave of militant attacks in Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s aimed at overthrowing the regime and replacing it with an Islamic sate was crushed by the regime.
In 1981, Islamic militants assassinated president Anwar Sadat during a military parade. A state of emergency has been in force in Egypt ever since.
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