ANSD : Brotherhood chief, 65 others get life in jail for Egypt attack

SAT 27 - 4 - 2024

Date: Sep 24, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Brotherhood chief, 65 others get life in jail for Egypt attack

MINYA, Egypt: An Egyptian court Sunday sentenced 66 people to life in prison, including Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammad Badie, over an August 2013 attack on a police station in Minya. Death sentences were meted out to 183 people over the deadly attack on the police station in the southern province, before a retrial was ordered. Around 700 people were tried again Sunday in this case, defense lawyer Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsood told AFP.

Sixty-six of the 700 who were tried again were sentenced to life imprisonment, which is 25 years in Egypt; 288 were acquitted; six have died since the first trial; and the rest were sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison.

Badie, 75, was Sunday convicted of inciting his supporters to violence in the Minya case following the ouster of Islamist President Mohammad Morsi in July 2013.

Badie, on trial in 35 cases related to the Brotherhood, has been sentenced to death in several of them but the verdicts have been overturned by the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s final recourse for appeals in criminal cases.

He got life sentences in more than five cases.

Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands arrested since the military ousted Morsi.

Elected after the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak, Morsi served as president for a year before being toppled after mass protests against his divisive rule. His successor was former military chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, whose regime has been accused of a campaign of repression to wipe out dissent.

The government has rejected the allegations, saying its priority is to reform the economy and fight “terrorism,” and accusing its detractors of seeking to harm Egypt’s interests.

On Sept. 8, a Cairo court sentenced 75 people to death, including other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. The verdicts drew condemnation from human rights groups.

Separately, Egypt’s highest appeals court Saturday rejected a motion by Mubarak and his two sons to overturn their conviction on corruption charges.

The ruling by the Court of Cassation dashed any hope that Gamal – Mubarak’s younger son and one-time heir apparent – would be able to run for public office.

A senior newspaper editor and confidant of Egypt’s current president had recently suggested that banker-turned-politician Gamal may have been contemplating such a move.

The Mubarak trio was sentenced to three years each for embezzling funds meant for maintenance of presidential palaces but which they spent on upgrading or building private residences.

The sons were released in 2015 for time served, while their father was freed last year.

They repaid the funds – a total of 125 million Egyptian pounds (about $7 million).

Mubarak’s sons are currently on trial for insider trading.

They are free on bail after a judge Thursday overturned a surprise Sept. 15 ruling to detain them. The case’s next hearing is on Oct. 20.

The rejection of their appeal Saturday and Gamal Mubarak’s subsequent ineligibility to run for office came in the wake of recent comments by the chief editor of state-run Al-Akhbar publications, Yasser Rizk, who suggested that frequent public appearances by the younger Mubarak could be a prelude to a future presidential run.

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