CAIRO, March 4: The Egyptian government said on Thursday for the first time that Mohamed al Zawahri, the brother of Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al Zawahri, was in an Egyptian prison and would stand trial.

"Mohamed Zawahri is alive. He is in an Egyptian prison and he will have a retrial so that he can defend himself," Interior Minister Habib al Adly told reporters. A court official had said on Saturday that Mohamed al Zawahri was in an Egyptian prison and faced a retrial.

Mohammed al Zawahri, a member of the Egyptian militant movement Al Jihad led by his brother Ayman, was extradited to Egypt by an Arab country in 2001 and is currently being held in an Egyptian prison, the official said. Mohammed al Zawahri, head of Jihad's military wing, was sentenced to die in 1999 in a trial of 107 people. -AFP