Egypt's opposition groups criticized Thursday a prisoner exchange deal with Israel, saying it had fallen short of expectations dpa reported
"This deal is unfair," said Khaled Arafat, an official in the opposition Karama Party in the town of Taba, in the south of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where Israeli-US citizen Ilan Grapel was to be handed over.
"The exchange should have included all 81 Egyptian prisoners held in Israel's prisons," Arafat told dpa.
Some 25 Egyptian prisoners, including three minors, are to be released on Thursday in exchange for Grapel, held in Egypt since June on espionage charges.
Ashraf al-Hefni, an opposition politician in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, called the deal "faulty."
"It is faulty because it did not include political Egyptian prisoners or those captured for fighting the Israeli occupation of Sinai(from 1967 to 1973)," he said.
"Egyptians who negotiated this agreement should have taken this into consideration," he added.
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