January 4, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 19, 1422

CAIRO, Jan 3: The United States has provided Egypt with a detailed report on the fate of 113 Egyptians arrested in the US in connection with the Sept 11 attacks, a senior official at the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Assistant Foreign Minister for Consular and Expatriate Affairs, Mohammed Abbas, said that according to the report, 24 of the detainees had been released, either for lack of evidence or on bail, or simply deported.

A further 37 detainees have been ordered out of the country but were still in jail. Abbas said Egypt wanted all legal procedures against those still detained to be completed as soon as possible.

Egyptian officials have frequently complained that the US side was forthcoming enough with information about citizens rounded up in the aftermath of the September attacks.

US officials believed that an Egyptian, Mohammed Atta, was among the hijackers of one of the planes that hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York.—dpa