Posted: 05/10/2012 at 7:20am | IP Logged

UPPER EGYPT (ANS) -- Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that a judge in Upper Egypt has dismissed all charges against a group of Salafi Muslims who cut off the ear of a Christian in a knife attack in which they tried to force him to convert.

The Salafists, who say they base their religion on the Islam of the first three generations after Muhammad, had falsely accused 46-year-old Ayman Anwar Metry of having an affair with a Muslim woman, the Christian told Compass.

CDN said that on April 22 the judge exonerated the assailants only after Metry, under intense pressure in a "reconciliation meeting," agreed to drop charges, said his attorney, Asphoure Wahieb Hekouky.

"Metry said his attackers demanded he say the Shahada, the Islamic creed for conversion, and that when he refused, they cut off his ear," said the story. "Almost as soon as the police questioning ended, the assailants began pressuring him not to prosecute anyone, Metry said.

The attackers threatened all his family members, he said, including his brothers and sisters, to try to force him to drop the charges, he said. The Salafists were trying to beat him to death, Metry said, and so they could "kill the facts" of the attack.

In addition to slicing off his ear, they cut him all over hi s body and left bruises from a beating that "would have killed a camel," he said.

For more information, please go to: www.compassdirect.org

Source: (ANS) www.assistnews.net