Bari came to the attention of Egyptian authorities as early as 1981, when he was imprisoned and tortured following the murder of President
Anwar Sadat on 6 October of that year. On a return trip from the United States to Egypt via the UK in 1991, Abdel Bari applied for political asylum in Britain. It was granted by the
Second Major ministry in 1993. Bari was sentenced to death
in absentia in Egypt in 1995 for his part in the 1995 plot to blow up
Cairo's
Khan el-Khalili market, along with
Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar and
Ahmad Salama Mabruk. Bari was, in 1997 and 1998, reputedly the head of the London-based terrorist cell for the EIJ. He was arrested in September 1998 in the UK as part of
Operation Challenge, which arrested seven men living in Britain through use of the
Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989, accusing them of links to
al-Jihad, because of the Embassy bombings in East Africa. Abdel Bari communicated by satellite phone with
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Zawahiri invited Abdel Bari into the British component of
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), and Abdel Bari accepted, promising to obey the EIJ leadership. Abdel Bari and Eidarous are also accused of issuing statements to several press organizations shortly after the embassy bombings, in which they claim to represent the perpetrators. He received an additional life sentence
in absentia in the 1999 case of the
Returnees from Albania, in which he was convicted of being a media agent of EIJ and the head of EIJ's London component. His final appeal against extradition to the
European Court of Human Rights was refused in autumn 2012. He was ultimately charged with 213 counts of premeditated murder for the
Nairobi bombing and 11 more for the
attack in Dar es Salaam, as well as conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and several lesser charges. These attacks left more than 5,000 others wounded. Two co-defendants,
Khalid al Fawwaz and
Abu Anas al Libi, were scheduled to commence trial on 3 November 2014 before Judge Kaplan. Bari was released on 9 October 2020. He later returned to live in London. ==Personal life==