President Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Monster-in-Charge of Egypt, has announced the pardon of Mostafa Hamza, a leader of The Islamic Group.

Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya leader Mostafa Hamza, detained for terrorist activity and attempt on Hosni Mubarak’s life, released Tuesday by President Morsi’s pardon. Hamza, a leading member of Islamic organisation Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, was extradited to Egypt from Iran in 2004. He was detained following terrorism-related charges that included being a member of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Forget Mubarak, Hamza was responsible for a lot of atrocities, but his ugliest hour may have been the Luxor Massacre.

Six black-garbed gunmen killed two police officers and shot unarmed ticket-takers Monday while taking over the temple compound. They then took their time–“dancing and singing” for an hour, one survivor said–as they slaughtered and mutilated helpless visitors from Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Britain and several other countries. Police said Thursday that a note found in the wallet of one of the attackers said the operation had been ordered by an Islamic Group leader, Mustafa Hamza, who is believed to be in hiding in Afghanistan.

The Luxor Massacre has been mostly forgotten, but it deserves to be remembered as a template of the Islamist soul. The full horror of what happened there needs to be understood for us to understand what Morsi has just done.

As they ran past a Japanese tourist, she said, one of the men fired into the woman’s face from a range of about 15 inches. “They made us get down on our knees,” Ms Dousse said. “And then they started shooting. A man who was very heavy fell on me and the lady behind me also covered me … They shot me in the arm and leg, and then they started again shooting those who were still alive in the head. The gunmen “took all the young women, the girls, and disappeared with them. I don’t know where they went with the women, but they hurt them. We could hear screams of pain,” Dousse said. “It went on for a long time, an hour or an hour and a half. The terrorists came back again and again; they danced and sang,” she said. Among the horrors, the marauders cut off the ears and noses of several of their victims. A note praising Islam was found inside one disemboweled body. The foreign dead included 31 Swiss, 10 Japanese, five Germans, four Britons one a child a Bulgarian, a Colombian and a French citizen. The Japanese victims were four newlywed couples and an elderly couple on their second honeymoon. A statement issued in the name of Egypt’s most prominent Islamic militant group said that the massacre had begun as an effort to take hostages in order to secure the release of a leader imprisoned in New York for his role in the World Trade Center bombing. But the accounts by survivors gave no hint of any attempts to take tourists alive – only to kill and, perhaps, to butcher, them. The terrorists came back, as they sang, danced and shouted “Allah, Allah …”. It took an eternity before help arrived. Two British backpackers told last night how a screaming terrorist slit the throat of a tourist as he begged for mercy. Stuart Bentley and Paula Wainwright watched terrified from behind a pillar as the black-clad gunman first riddled the man’s legs with bullets as he tried to flee. Stuart said: “I saw three men dressed in black.They were screaming something, almost like a chant, and shooting indiscriminately. “I saw one man, who looked European, trying to run away. He was shot in the legs, rolled over and clasped his hands together as if begging for his life. But the gunman just cut his throat and began firing again.” The remains of the Luxor massacre victim Joan Turner were eventually flown back to Britain yesterday. The body of her daughter, Karina, is still missing. Behind the difficulties in identifying the bodies of the family lies the brutal fact that their Muslim fundamentalist killers had deliberately disfigured the bodies of their victims after stripping them. They had been shot in the face after they were dead.

After the September 11, 2012 attacks, Morsi pardoned one of the worst monsters in the ranks of Egyptian Salafists, the man who ordered this atrocity. This is not an accident, this is a message. It is a statement from the Muslim Brotherhood that Obama has put in charge of Egypt. “I am with you.” Whatever outrage there was over the freeing of the Lockerbie bomber should be doubled and trebled in this case. The Luxor Massacre was far more horrifying than Lockerbie. It was closer to Beslan and Morsi has made it clear that his new Egypt is on the side of the perpetrators of the Luxor Massacre.