Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court has sentenced an alleged al-Qaeda bomb-maker with ties to the group’s offshoots in Yemen and Somalia to life in prison.

The public prosecutor said in a statement Wednesday that 28-year-old telecommunications engineer Mahmoud Abdel Aziz was a bomb-maker and communications specialist for the al-Shabab militant group in Kenya and Somalia, and had helped the group communicate with al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate.

The prosecutor says Abdel Aziz, who went by the nom de guerre “Hakeem al-Masry,” was recruited to al-Qaeda in 2009. The statement said he was arrested in Kenya for being in the country illegally and handed over to Egypt, without specifying when.

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