Three leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the movement’s former arch-foe Hosni Mubarak faced separate trials yesterday on similar charges of involvement in the killing of protesters.
Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood’s “General Guide”, and his deputies did not appear at the opening of their trial for security reasons, a judicial source said. Citing their absence, the judge adjourned the proceedings until October 29.
The case against Badie, Khairat Al Shater and Rashad Bayoumy relates to unrest before the army removed Islamist President Mohammed Mursi from power on July 3. Mursi is detained in an undisclosed location.
Mubarak, who left prison on Thursday after judges ordered his release, appeared in a courtroom cage in a wheelchair, along with his jailed sons Gamal and Alaa and former interior minister Habib Al Adly.
After a hearing that lasted about three hours, the judge set the next session for September 14, pending further investigation.
The former president was sentenced to life in prison last year for complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolt against him, but an appeals court ordered a retrial.
A helicopter flew Mubarak to the court in the Police Academy on the eastern outskirts of Cairo from a military hospital where he was placed under house arrest after his release from jail.
The government used a state of emergency it declared earlier this month to place Mubarak under house arrest, apparently to forestall any public anger if he had simply walked free.
Charges against Badie and his aides include incitement to violence in connection with an anti-Brotherhood protest near the group’s Cairo headquarters on June 30 in which nine people were killed and 91 wounded. The 70-year-old Brotherhood chief was detained last week. Shater and Bayoumy were picked up earlier.
A pro-Mursi alliance known as the National Coalition to Support Legitimacy and Reject the Coup called yesterday for a campaign of civil disobedience to paralyse Egypt, “retake the revolution” and reverse the army takeover.
Castigating foes of the army, a spokesman for interim President Adly Mansour said Egypt had undergone difficulties in the past two months, but had reached a “safe area”.
“Those who tried and are still trying to break the Egyptian army will fall alongside the Tatars and Crusaders and all other enemies in the same dustbin,” Ahmed El Meslemani declared.
Source: Agencies
