Tourist killer targeted Jews

A former insane asylum inmate went on trial yesterday for killing nine German tourists last month, saying he meant to attack Jews and was ready to "kill even a hundred, or even two hundred" of them. Saber Abu el-Ulla said he carried out the attack to avenge a cartoon drawn by an Israeli Jewish woman earlier this year that depicted Islam's Prophet Mohammed as a pig.

"I wish I could have gotten to her," Abu el-Ulla said, speaking from behind a steel cage inside the courtroom. He and his brother, Mahmoud, are charged with premeditated murder in the shooting and firebombing of a tourist bus on 18 September in a brazen attack outside the Egyptian Museum.

The government has denied that the attack was linked to Islamic extremist groups. - AP