they had made no offense or provocation toward him. The only reason why he had opened fire was that, as Khatir said, they had trespassed on a prohibited territory. He was tried by a closed military tribunal and on 28 December 1985 sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. Ten days later, on 8 January 1986, Khatir was found dead in his prison hospital room hanging by a strip torn from a sheet of plastic. The authorities declared his death a suicide. Opposition parties in Egypt claimed that he had been murdered. After Khater's death, the Iranian government of Ayatollah Khomeini issued a stamp "In honour of the martyrdom of Sulayman Khater, Hero of Sinai", and named a street in Tehran for him. Khater is still praised and valorized in the anti-Israel press. Near the anniversary in October 2018 the Turkey-based Muslim Brotherhood Watan TV host Dina Zakaria called Khater a hero. Reactions in Egypt Egyptian opposition politicians hailed Khatir as "hero of Sinai" for committing the massacre of Israelis. The glorification of Khatir as a national hero in the Egyptian opposition press was echoed in other Arab countries, and mass demonstrations were held in his support. Attempting to justify his actions, the press did not report that all but one of the victims were women or children, but instead invented miscellaneous pretexts for the shootings. The press claimed that the Israeli tourists were spies caught photographing secret military installations, that they spat upon and tore up an Egyptian flag, that half-naked Israeli women offended Khatir's Muslim conscience, or that the tourists attacked him. The pro-governmental press remained silent regarding the facts of the massacre, leaving the claims unchallenged. Many Egyptian intellectuals and religious leaders joined in extolling Khatir and his act. Umar al-Tilmisani, the leader of Muslim Brotherhood, said that "if every Muslim would do what Sulayman did, Israel would no longer exist". , one of the leaders of the Arab Socialist Party, called Khater "the conscience of this nation", whose bullets "washed away the shame" of the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt. Ahmad Nasir, of the Egyptian Bar Association, claimed that history would always honor Khater as "a living model of a noble Egyptian who refused to be led astray by the treaties of betrayal and surrender". The response of Egyptian president Mubarak was that "Unfortunately these things happen. They cannot reflect on the