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Recent Appearances...

Africa North

Cairo sentences 25 to 15 years in prison, acquits 12 in Rabaa dispersal case

2022-05-14

[AlAhram] A Cairo criminal court has sentenced 25 people to 15 years in prison, one juvenile to five years, and acquitted 12 others in a retrial of the case known in media as “the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in case.”

These sentences are only preliminary, leading to years more of retrials before anything is finalized. Hence the Page 2: WoT Background designation,

The defendants were charged with several crimes that took place in August 2013, including the premeditated murder of civilians as well as policemen who were tasked with dispersing a sit-in in Cairo’s Rabaa square, which has been renamed Hisham Barakat Square.

The defendants were also charged with attempted murder, blocking roads, destroying public property, and possessing firearms and Molotov cocktails.

The case, which involves more than 700 defendants including fugitives, dates back to the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in that was held by supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in August 2013.

The dispersal left hundreds dead and thousands arrested on a variety of charges. It also unleashed days of nationwide street clashes and attacks on security installations.

In June last year, Egypt’s Court of Cassation upheld the death penalty for 12 people in the case, Mohamed El-Beltagy, Safwat Hegazy, and Abdel-Rahman El-Bar, three key leading members of the terrorist-designated Muslim Brotherhood.

The country's top appeals court also commuted in June the death penalty for 31 others in the same case to life imprisonment, but upheld prison sentences ranging from five to 25 years for 277 others.

The cassation court also upheld a 10-year prison sentence against Osama, the son of ousted President Morsi.

Criminal proceedings against another key Brotherhood figure, Essam El-Erian, were abated after his death in custody in August 2020. El-Erian had received a final death penalty in the case.

In 2018, a Cairo Criminal Court issued preliminary death sentences for 75 members of the Brotherhood in a mass trial in the case. Several defendants, including Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, were handed life imprisonment sentences in the case.

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Africa North

Egypt court reduces sentences for Brotherhood's Badie, 36 others in Beni Suef case

2018-12-24

[AlAhram] A Cairo Court of Cassation has accepted an appeal by the head of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie and 36 others, decreasing their prison sentences in the so-called ‘Beni Suef violence’ case.

The court reduced Badie’s sentence from life imprisonment to 10 years.

The remaining defendants had their sentences reduced from 15 years to three years.

Sunday's court verdict is final and cannot be appealed.

Whew! Finally, this trial is over. Only ninety-two eleventy more trials to go.

The trial had a total of 93 defendants, 56 of whom were tried in absentia.

The verdicts of life imprisonment and 15 years were handed down in September 2017.

The case dates back to the deadly violence that took place in Beni Suef governorate in Upper Egypt in August 2013 after security forces dispersed two Cairo sit-ins protesting the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The defendants were charged with torching a police station and a nun’s school in Beni Suef. They were also charged with inciting violence, vandalising public facilities, belonging to an outlawed group and the possession of weapons and ammunition.

The defendants in the case include leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and former parliamentarians, including Nihad El-Qasim Abdel-Wahhab, secretary of the Freedom and Justice Party in Beni Suef, Sayyed Heikal, Khalid Syed Naji, former members of the Shura Council, and Abdel-Rahman Shukri, a former member of the People's Assembly.

Link

Africa North

Court jails Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader for life

2018-08-14

CAIRO (Reuters) - The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and other leaders of the banned group were sentenced to life in prison on Sunday, judicial sources said, on charges of incitement to murder and violence during protests five years ago.

The sentence is the latest among several trials and re-trials against Mohamed Badie and other senior leaders of the party that ruled Egypt before the military ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi following mass protests.

The sources told Reuters that Giza Criminal Court sentenced several top leaders including Badie, group spokesman Essam al-Erian, and senior member Mohamed El-Beltagy to life terms.

State news agency MENA said another defendant was jailed for 15 years and three others for 10 years.

Badie and the other defendants were convicted of incitement to violence on July 15, 2013, including the killing of five demonstrators and wounding of 100 during protests in an area in Giza known as al-Bahr al-Azim.

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Africa North

Egypt court overturns death sentences for 149

2016-02-03

An Egyptian appeals court on Wednesday overturned death sentences for 149 people accused of killing policemen in a mob attack on their station, a judicial source said.

The court ordered a retrial for the defendants over the attack, which killed 13 policemen near Cairo on Aug. 14, 2013, the day police shot dead hundreds of demonstrators in the capital.

The initial ruling in February 2015 came amid a series of death sentences in mass trials that were criticized internationally, as the government cracked down on supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

The court had also sentenced 37 people to death in absentia, but they would have to hand themselves in for a retrial.

The grounds for the appeals court ruling were not immediately available, but the court has overturned hundreds of death sentences over the past year, to the relief of rights advocates and frustration of some in the government who have urged fast track executions.

Seven people have been executed for political violence since Morsi's ouster, including six who were convicted of belonging to an insurgent group.

The military overthrow of Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, ushered in the worst domestic bloodshed in the country's modern history.

Morsi ruled for only a year, deeply dividing the country, and his removal was met with escalating protests by those who favored the Morsi-supporting Muslim Brotherhood.

On Aug. 14, 2013, less than two months after Morsi's overthrow, police broke up two protest camps in Cairo, killing about 700 protesters.

Morsi's supporters around the country attacked police stations, killing dozens of officers, and torched the churches of Coptic Christians.

Morsi himself is facing several trials and has already been sentenced to death in one case.

Several leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood movement, including its chief Mohamed Badie, have been sentenced to either death or lengthy jail terms.

The movement has been blacklisted as a "terrorist organization" and its assets confiscated. It was also long repressed by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose downfall was one of the major episodes of the Arab Spring.

The police crackdown that initially targeted Morsi supporters was later widened to include secularist and leftist leaders and activists.

Link

Africa North

Egypt jails Brotherhood head for 10 years over clashes

2015-12-23

An Egyptian military court on Tuesday sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to 10 years in prison over deadly clashes following the 2013 ouster of president Mohammed Mursi, judicial officials said.

Ninety other defendants tried in absentia were sentenced to life terms, which in Egypt, runs to 25 years.

Badie and dozens of others were found guilty of participating in clashes that killed 31 people in the canal city of Suez between August 14 and 16, 2013. The clashes erupted after police brutally broke up two pro-Mursi protest camps in Cairo on August 14 that year.

The charges in the military trial included vandalism, inciting violence, murder, assaulting military personnel and setting fire to armoured personnel carriers and two Coptic churches in Suez.

Badie, the Brotherhood's spiritual guide, was sentenced to 10 years in prison along with fellow Brotherhood leader Mohamed Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy, a pro-Brotherhood Islamist, army and judicial officials said. Forty-one defendants were sentenced to serve between three and seven years behind bars, while 90 others were handed down life sentences.

Badie is facing several trials and has been sentenced to death in a separate case along with Mursi for plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak. The Brotherhood chief has also been handed life sentences in five other cases.

At some point they're just piling on. But not yet...

The local rag, Al Ahram, pointed out that 50 were aquitted this time.

Link

Africa North

BOOM: Egypt Sentences Obama's Right Hand Man to Death

2015-03-22

[WoundedAmericanWarrior] Among the group of members who were sentenced to death is Mohamed Badie, chief of the Muslim Brotherhood. All twenty-one sentenced, including the chief, will die by hanging, according to reports.

They were found guilty on multiple charges, including the organization of an "operations room," which served as a headquarters to plan violent terrorist attacks against el-Sissi's government and spread chaos around the country.

The group of MB terrorists were also found guilty of planning attacks on police stations, churches and other types of private property.

Some of the other men involved in the sentencing were high-level MB operatives and leaders, including Mahmoud Ghozlan, Saad El-Hossainy, Salah Soltan and Fathy Shehab.

It's too bad for them that they weren't sentenced in the United States, as President Barack Obama would probably have sent them on a nice little vacation to a minimum security federal prison before releasing them back to their home country shortly thereafter.

While Egypt's president continues to slay the bad guys, Obama continues to hire them into his administration.

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Africa North

Egyptian court sentences Badie, 7 others to life in prison

2014-08-31

An Egyptian court sentenced Mohamed Badie, general guide of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and seven others to life in prison on Saturday for inciting violence during protests last year, judicial sources said.

Badie had already been sentenced to death and received a life sentence in other cases, part of Cairo’s toughest crackdown - widely criticised by human rights groups - on the country’s oldest and most organised Islamist movement.

Hang him, cut him down, and hang him again...

The judge, Mohamed Nagi Shehata, also sentenced six other defendants to death in absentia.

Badie was charged with killing at least nine people and inciting violence that injured 21 others in clashes near a mosque in Giza in 2013. Prosecutors charged all the defendants with “murder and attempted murder and inciting violence and possession of arms”, the judicial sources said.

Senior Brotherhood leaders sentenced to life in prison on Saturday included Mohamed El Beltagi and Essam El Erian, as well as former members of the Mursi government.

Badie and 182 Muslim brotherhood supporters were sentenced to death in a mass trial last June over violence that erupted in Minya governorate which led to the killing of a police officer. A court sentenced Badie to life in prison in July for inciting violence and blocking a major road north of Cairo during protests that followed Mursi’s ouster.

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Africa North

Egyptian Court Sentences Muslim Brotherhood Leader To Life In Prison

2014-07-05

[Ynet] An Egyptian court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to life in prison on Saturday, the court's judge said, for inciting violence that erupted after the army deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last year.

Badie, convicted along with about 36 other Brotherhood leaders and supporters for the same crime, is facing the death sentence in two separate cases. All 37 defendants were also charged with blocking a major road north of Cairo during protests that followed Mursi's ouster on July 3, 2013.

Link

Africa North

Egypt court sentences 10 Brüderbunders to death

2014-06-08

An Egyptian court sentenced 10 supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to death in absentia on Saturday, but postponed sentencing of the movement's leader and other senior members on trial in the same case, judicial sources said.

Those sentenced were convicted on charges including inciting violence and blocking a major road north of Cairo during protests after the army toppled President Mohammed Mursi last July. All 10 were assumed to be in hiding amid a state crackdown on the group since Mursi's ouster. One of those sentenced was Abdul Rahman Al Barr, a member of the Brotherhood's Guidance Council, the movement's executive board.

Death sentence recommendations in Egypt are passed on to the country's Mufti, the highest religious authority. His opinion can be ignored by the court. The rulings can be appealed.

Judge Hassan Fareed said the verdict for the rest of the defendants would be announced at a hearing on July 5.

Those 38 defendants include the Brotherhood movement's General Guide Mohamed Badie and senior member Mohamed El Beltagy, along with former ministers from Mursi's government. Badie was among 683 people sentenced to death in April.

Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters and members of the security forces have been killed since Mursi's ouster. Secular activists are also in jail. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said last month 16 journalists were imprisoned in Egypt.

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Africa North

Morsi Supporters in Egypt Get Up to 88 Years for Rioting

2014-04-27

An Egyptian court sentenced 13 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi Saturday to prison terms ranging from five to 88 years for rioting, a judicial source said.

They were accused of "rioting, sabotage and public order offences" in the southern towns of Samalut and Minya during protests against a bloody crackdown in Cairo on August 14 when hundreds of people were killed, the source said.

They are able to appeal the verdicts.

On March 24, 529 Morsi supporters were sentenced to death on the second day of their trial in Minya province in the largest mass death sentencing in Egypt's modern history.

The sentences caused an international outcry.

On Monday, the same court is due to pass sentence on Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohamed Badie and 700 other Morsi supporters.

Link

Africa North

Egyptian judge cuts short mass trial over disruptive lawyers

2014-03-23

A mass trial of members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood began in Egypt on Saturday, but proceedings were abruptly cut short by the judge who said defence lawyers were being disruptive and "discussing politics", a judicial source said. Judge Saeed Youssef Mohamed would announce his ruling on Monday and requested the lawyers of the 545 defendants to submit their written defence within 24 hours, the source said, declining to be identified.

"I can say no more!"

The charges against the group, on trial in the province of Southern Minya, include storming a police station, attacking persons and damaging public and private property.

Only 123 of the defendants were present, the rest being either released, out on bail or on the run. Most were arrested during clashes which erupted in Minya after the forced dispersal of two Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo on August 14.

Tarek Fouda, head of the lawyer's syndicate in Minya said that the presiding judge had "veered away from all legal norms and that he breached the rights of the defence".

Fouda said he would submit a report on what had occurred at Saturday's hearing to Egypt's Justice Minister.

Hundreds died when security forces cleared the Cairo camps, where protesters had been calling for the reinstatement of former President Mohammed Mursi, ousted by the army in July. The events sparked violent protests all over Egypt.

Shortly after the army takeover, the authorities labelled the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist" organisation and thousands of its members have since been arrested. Their trials have become an almost daily occurrence in Egypt, in groups of varying sizes. Mass trials are unusual, although this is the first of two scheduled in one week. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, in just one of several cases against him, will stand trial with 682 others on Tuesday, accused of incitement to kill.

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Africa North

Egypt adjourns Mursi's trial in stormy start

2014-02-17

Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Mursi charged he was being muzzled in a soundproof dock at the start of his trial on espionage charges on Sunday, as his defence lawyers staged a protest walk-out.

When you don't have the facts or the law, pound...

The court adjourned the trial, the third for him since his July 3 ouster, to February 23 to allow the lawyers' syndicate to appoint new lawyers.

Mursi, who has shouted that he was Egypt's legitimate and elected president in hearings of other trials against him, said the court was trying to silence him.

"We are in a farce, all this because you are afraid of me. You are afraid that the president speaks," Mursi cried out.

"If this farce continues, don't come to the court," Mursi told his defence.

Mohamed Selim Al Awa, a member of the defence team, said: "We have withdrawn until the court removes the glass cage, we will not get in the room today."

The soundproof dock is designed to stop Mursi and the other defendants from interrupting the proceedings with outbursts.

Duct tape is cheaper...

On Sunday, 20 defendants were brought to court, including Mursi, who was placed in a separate dock with a former aide, and the Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat Al Shater.

The accused include former presidential aides and renowned political scientist Emad Shahin, who is being tried in absentia.

The latest court case is part of a relentless government crackdown targeting Mursi and his supporters since he was ousted by the military after a single year in power. Mursi and 35 others, including leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood, are accused of espionage "for the international organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood, its military wing and (Palestinian) Hamas movement."

If found guilty, the defendants could face the death penalty.

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