The hellish process continues.
[AlAhram] A Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Mahmoud Ezzat — the acting supreme guide of the Moslem Brüderbund — in a retrial on Sunday to life in prison for collaborating with the Paleostinian group Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", and other foreign organizations and disclosing information pertaining to Egypt’s national security.According to the prosecution’s investigation on the case that dates back to 2013, Ezzat, along with others, is charged with committing acts that undermine the independence, unity, and territorial integrity of the country.
A life sentence in Egypt carries 25 years in jail.
The official charges levelled against the defendants are communicating with foreign organizations with the aim of committing terrorist acts inside the country and financing terrorism to achieve the purposes of the international organization formally known as the Moslem Brüderbund.
Investigations showed that the defendants cooperated with elements affiliated with a terrorist group in Sinai and qualified others to spread rumors to influence public opinion.
Ezzat, who was arrested in 2020, was first handed a death sentence
...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...in absentia in 2015.
Under Egyptian law, in absentia convictions must be re-tried once the defendant is apprehended.
Today’s ruling against Ezzat, who is currently standing trial in other cases, can be appealed.
| The Times of Israel adds: |
In April 2021, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on terrorism charges in a separate case.
In 2015, Ezzat was sentenced in absentia to death, as well as given life imprisonment, after being found guilty of having supervised the killing of soldiers and government officials.
He was accused of involvement in the murder of the state prosecutor Hisham Barakat, who died in hospital after a boom-mobile tore through his convoy in Cairo in 2015.
The Brotherhood was blacklisted in Egypt in 2013 and deemed a terrorist group, months after the army overthrew Morsi who hailed from the movement.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was defense minister when Morsi was removed from power.
Founded in 1928, the Brotherhood later established itself as the main Islamist opposition movement in Egypt, and spread regionally with ardent offshoots from Tunisia to
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...Ezzat is reported to have joined the Brotherhood in the 1960s, and spent time in jail under Egypt’s late presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...