The mother of Khaled Al-Islambouli – the army officer who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981 – has expressed pride in her son during an interview with Iran's state-run Fars news agency.

"I am very proud that my son killed Anwar Al-Sadat," said Mrs Qadriya, 85. "[The government] called him a terrorist, a criminal, and a murderer, but they didn’t say that was he was defending Islam. They didn’t say anything about the oppressed people in Palestine, about Camp David, or how Sadat sold out the country to the Jews and violated the honour of the Islamic nation."

Islambouli was executed in 1982 for his role in the assassination.

Mrs Qadriya, who is also the grandmother-in-law of Osama Bin Laden's son, said she was proud to see the street named after her son in Tehran.

Al-Islambouli admired Iran, Mrs Qadriya added. He was greatly affected by its Islamic revolution and hoped the same would happen across the Arab world.

Mrs Qadriya also said that her return to Egypt from Afghanistan was secured by the Iranian authorities because she feared she would be "assassinated or kidnapped" on the way. "I returned to Egypt through diplomatic channels, not security ones. The [Iranian authorities] put me in a hotel in Tehran for 15 days and made all the travel arrangements."

Mrs Qadriya's other son, Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya leader Mohamed Al-Islambouli, was sentenced to death in absentia at a military trial in 1992 for planning terrorist operations in Egypt. He was seized at Cairo airport upon arriving from Tehran in August and is awaiting a retrial after submitting an appeal against his conviction.