The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Muslim Brotherhood

  • 10 sentenced to death for planning attacks in Egypt

    10 sentenced to death for planning attacks in Egypt

    An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced 10 people to death after they were convicted of forming a terror group and planning attacks on police and security forces, judicial sources said.

    The court in Cairo also sentenced five people to life in prison.

    State news agency MENA said the convicted men were supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood which was banned in Egypt after the 2013 overthrow of former President Mohamed Mursi.

    Egypt has cracked down on suspected Islamists since Mursi was toppled by former army general, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

    Sisi took over as president a year later and is expected to be re-elected later this month in a vote against only token opposition.

    With Egypt facing an Islamic State insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, the President  has ordered the military to clear the region of Islamists ahead of the March 26-28 presidential election.

    Reuters reported that Saturday’s rulings, which can be appealed, followed the referral of the death sentence to the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s highest Sunni Muslim authority.

    Three of the sentences were passed in absentia.

  • Boko Haram affiliate planning deadly attacks – FG

    Boko Haram affiliate planning deadly attacks – FG

    The Federal Government on Friday raised the alarm that a Boko Haram affiliate, Muslim Brotherhood, is planning massive attacks on banks, arms depots and prisons.

    It said the group through its cell in Kogi State was trying to acquire bomb-making chemicals and high-calibre weapons to perpetrate acts of terror.

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the alert followed intelligence made available to the government.

    The statement said: “The cell is making frantic efforts to advance its IED-making capability through the acquisition of such chemicals as Sodium Azide (for producing improvised detonators), Potassium Chlorate (alternative to ammonium nitrate used for producing IEDs) and Aluminium Powder (a fuel source for amplifying explosions).

    ”One Usman, an IED apprentice, left the cell some time back to join Islamic State in Libya. The new desire to acquire IED precursor chemicals could suggest that Usman or other persons may have returned from Libya and have acquired IED-making skills intended to increase the activities of the group.

    “Intelligence also revealed that the group is making serious efforts to acquire sophisticated arms, including shoulder-fired rocket launchers.

    ”Further intelligence monitoring has revealed that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are planning to forcefully free their members who are in detention in Kogi, Abuja and Kaduna,. Including one Bilyaminu, an IED expert for the group, who is now at Kuje prison.

    Mohammed appealed to Nigerians to be vigilant and to report any suspicious persons or movements to the appropriate authorities.

    Boko Haram and some of its affiliates have established cells in some parts of Kogi State.

    On January 10, the Department of State Security Service ( DSS) arrested a kingpin of the sect in Okene town, Adavi local government area of Kogi State.

    Identified as Abdullahi Mohammed, he was said to be the leader of the Boko Haram sect in Okene and was responsible for the coordination of Boko Haram activities in Okene axis of Kogi State.

    On October 13, about 10 suspected Islamic fundamentalists were killed near Lokoja in Kogi State during a bloody encounter between an Islamic sect and men of the Nigerian Army.

     

  • Egypt lists ex-soccer star Aboutrika on terror list

    Egypt has added retired football star, Mohamed Aboutrika, one of the country’s most renowned athletes, to a terror list for alleged ties to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, his lawyer told Reuters on Tuesday.

    Egypt has listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and jailed thousands of its supporters since the military removed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi from office in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

    A committee established to seize and manage Brotherhood properties and funds had previously frozen the former player’s assets.

    Aboutrika has denied supporting the Brotherhood, which maintains that it is peaceful, but was seen as supporting the former president’s election campaign in 2012.

    A terrorism law passed in 2015 and heavily criticised by international human rights groups requires Egyptian authorities to identify and list terrorist individuals and entities as well as stipulates penalties that range from five years in prison to death.

    Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, is facing an increasingly violent insurgency in Northern Sinai, where the country’s most active militant group has pledged its allegiance to the militant group Islamic State. Cairo and other cities have also witnessed militant attacks.

    The former midfielder, who led the country’s national team for roughly a decade, is currently in Gabon as a commentator for the Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

    His lawyer, Mohamed Osman, declined to specify when he might return to his home country, but said the decision, made by a Cairo criminal court, would be appealed.

    Roughly 1,400 other individuals considered to have alleged Brotherhood ties were included in the decision, Osman added.

  • 185 sentenced to death for attacking police in Egypt

    An Egyptian judge sentenced 185 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death on Tuesday over an attack on a police station near Cairo last year in which 12 policemen were killed.

    The ruling is preliminary and subject to a lengthy appeals process. It also goes to the country’s top religious authority for approval although his opinion is not binding.

    The sentence comes days after another court dropped charges against Hosni Mubarak over the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule, Reuters reports.

    The attack on the Kerdasa police station took place on August 14, 2013, the day that Egyptian security forces cleared two Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo, killing hundreds of people in one of the bloodiest episodes in Egypt’s modern history.

    Of those sentenced, 151 are in custody, with the others being tried in absentia, a judicial source said.

    Egyptian authorities have rounded up thousands of Brotherhood members since the army ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July last year, following protests against his turbulent one-year rule.

    Egyptian courts have since sentenced hundreds to death in mass trials that have been condemned by human rights groups.

    Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief who orchestrated Mursi’s removal, went on to win a presidential election in May.

    His critics say he has steadily rolled back the freedoms won in the 2011 uprising but many Egyptians appear willing to tolerate those curbs, seeing them as the price to pay to restore stability and economic growth.

  • Egypt bans pro-Mursi pressure group

    Egypt bans pro-Mursi pressure group

    Egypt on Thursday banned a pressure group that has pushed for the reinstatement of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was overthrown by the army last year.

    Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb issued a decree dissolving the National Coalition to Support Legitimacy and Reject the Coup as well as its political arm, the Independence Party, following an earlier court ruling against the organisations.

    The Coalition, which included Brotherhood supporters and other groups, was set up after then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew Mursi in July 2013 following protests against his rule, Reuters reports.

    Egyptian authorities have since cracked down on the Brotherhood, banning Egypt’s oldest Islamist organisation and jailed thousands of its members.

  • Egypt’s Brotherhood leader gets life sentence

    Egypt’s Brotherhood leader gets life sentence

    An Egyptian court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to life in prison on Saturday.

    He was jailed for inciting the violence that erupted after the army deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last year.

    Badie, convicted along with some 36 other Brotherhood leaders and supporters for the same crime, is facing the death sentence in two separate cases, Reuters reports.

    The court also upheld death sentences for 10 other Brotherhood supporters.

     

  • Egypt court acquits 169 Brotherhood supporters

    Egypt court acquits 169 Brotherhood supporters

    An Egyptian court acquitted 169 Muslim Brotherhood supporters charged in connection with unrest that followed the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi last year, breaking a pattern of mass convictions at trials involving the Islamist opposition.

    The men were charged with “illegal gathering” in relation to violence in Cairo on August 16 last year, two days after the security forces killed hundreds of Mursi supporters while breaking up their protest camps in the capital.

    Of those charged, 117 were still being held. They will now be freed. Others charged in the case had already been released. Further details on the ruling were not immediately available.

    The authorities have jailed thousands of Mursi supporters since the army deposed the Brotherhood politician last July following mass protests against his rule.

    Earlier this year, a judge issued preliminary death sentences against 1,200 Brotherhood supporters and members in two separate cases, triggering heavy condemnation from Western governments and human rights groups. The convicted included the group’s leader, Mohamed Badie.

    Rights groups criticised the trials for deep procedural flaws, and despite the acquittals, other courts are continuing with convictions, Reuters reports.

    A judge in Alexandria on Monday convicted 62 people and sentenced them to jail terms of up to 25 years in relation to political violence last July. The judge also upheld the death penalty against one of those charged in the case.

    This came a day after more than 160 Brotherhood supporters were handed sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

     

  • 102 Islamists get 10-year sentence in Egypt

    More than 100 supporters of Egypt’s deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi were sentenced to ten years in jail on Saturday on charges of killing and inciting violence, judicial sources said.
    The verdicts for the 102 defendants, handed down ahead of a May 26-27 presidential election, relate to deaths that occurred during clashes in Cairo last July between supporters of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and security forces.
    Two other Brotherhood supporters who were defendants in the case received seven-year jail sentences, the sources said. Only 35 defendants were present in court, the others were tried in absentia.
    Militant violence has spiralled since last July, when the army toppled Mursi and the authorities launched a crackdown on his supporters in the Brotherhood. Thousands of the movement’s supporters have been arrested and hundreds killed, and its leaders are on trial.
    Another Egyptian court sentenced the leader of the Brotherhood and 682 supporters to death earlier this week, intensifying the crackdown and drawing Western criticism.
    Reuters reports that former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the ousting of Mursi, is expected to win the presidential election.
    Egypt has declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group, but Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement said it is committed to peaceful activism.

  • Death sentence for Brotherhood chief Badie, 682 others

    A judge at a mass trial in Egypt has recommended the death penalty for 683 people – including the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie.

    The defendants faced charges over an attack on a police station in Minya in 2013 in which a policeman was killed.

    The judge also reversed 492 death sentences out of 529 passed in March, commuting most to life in prison, the BBC reports.

    The cases and speed of the hearings have drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and the United Nations.

    The trials took just hours each and the court prevented defence lawyers from presenting their case, according to Human Right Watch.

    The BBC says several female relatives waiting outside the courtroom fainted on hearing news of the verdict.

    Last month, the UN human rights commissioner condemned the two trials and said they had breached international human rights law.

    A spokesman for Navi Pillay said the “cursory mass trial” was “rife with procedural irregularities.”

    Authorities have cracked down harshly on Islamists since President Mohammed Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, was removed by the military in July. Hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested.

  • Mursi’s supporters jailed in Egypt

    Mursi’s supporters jailed in Egypt

    An Egyptian court sentenced 119 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood of former president Mohamed Mursi to three years each in prison on Wednesday in connection with last October’s protests against his overthrow, judicial sources said.

    More than 50 people were killed in the Ocober. 6 protests called by Mursi supporters, one of the bloodiest days since his overthrow by the military on July 3.

    Reuters reports that judge Hazem Hashad acquitted six people in the case. They faced charges including unlawful assembly and thuggery.

    The army-backed authorities have banned the Muslim Brotherhood and driven it underground, killing hundreds of its supporters in the weeks after Mursi was toppled and arresting thousands more.

    In another case, a court in southern Egypt sentenced 529 Mursi supporters to death last month. The ruling has drawn criticism from rights groups and Western governments.

    The Brotherhood was Egypt’s best organised political party until last year but the government has declared it a terrorist group and accused it of turning to violence since Mursi was overthrown following mass protests against his rule.

    The Brotherhood says the group remains committed to peacefully resisting what it views as a military coup.