June 11, 2018
Seven more receive preliminary death sentence by an Egyptian Kangaroo Court
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
An Egyptian Kangaroo Court has preliminary sentenced to death another seven members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to death.
According to Al Ahram Online, Egypt's Zagazig Criminal Court has referred the case of seven members of the Muslim Brotherhood organization to the country's grand mufti for his non-binding opinion on sentencing them to death over the killing of a police conscript in the Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqiya in 2015.
The court set the sentencing of the defendants for 12 July.
Egyptian Kangaroo courts are on death sentences spree since the overthrow of Mohammad Morsi, the first democratically election president of Egypt by US client General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi who has since assumed the title of Field Marshall.
On 28 April 2014, in the aftermath of a coup d'état against President Mohammad Morsi, an Egyptian Kangaroo Court sentenced 683 alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death, including the group's supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, and confirmed the death sentences of 37 of 529 alleged supporters previously condemned.
Kangaroo Court Judge Saeed Youssef first attracted international condemnation and prompted an outcry from human-rights groups after he handed down the initial sentence for the 528 defendants on March 24, 2014 following a brief trial marked by irregularities. Later he reversed 492 of those 529 death sentences, commuting most of them to life in prison.
On January 2, 2018, Egyptian authorities executed five alleged members of the Muslim Brotherhood group. The defendants were convicted of what prosecution claimed "executing a terrorist attack in Kafr al-Sheikh governorate in April of 2015."
Lawyer of the defendants filed an appeal against the tentative death penalty that was released previously. However, the appeal was rejected by a high military court.
The trial of Kafr al-Sheikh incident was full of shortcomings and corruption, according to the Egyptian Coordination of Rights and Freedoms (ECRF). The rights organization stated in one of its reports that the lawyers of defendants filed several proofs –official reports and documents– that they were forcibly disappeared 70 days prior to the attack.
ECRF further added the National Security is aware of their disappearance, claiming that the defendants were subject to torture in order to admit their involvement in the incident. Additionally, the report claimed that security cameras in the attack’s place weren’t examined despite the demands of the lawyers.
Egyptian Kangaroo court places 169 Muslim Brotherhood members on terror list
Not surprisingly, an Egyptian kangaroo court last month placed 169 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group on the country's terror list.
The defendants are facing charges of conspiring to infiltrate state institutions with the aim of overthrowing the regime by force and spreading chaos in the country.
The court’s decision is based on state security investigations, which claimed that the defendants attempted to revive the group's activities by recruiting new members to its armed wings, spread rumors and provided financial and logistical assistance to the Brotherhood, which was designated a terrorist group in 2013.
Under the country’s anti-terrorism law, any person placed on the terror list is subject to a travel ban and having their assets frozen.
Egypt's terror list contains over 1,500 names, including top Brotherhood leaders.
The list includes Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, who was overthrown by US Client General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi who has now assumed the title of Field Marshall.
The list also includes Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie, and the deputy supreme guide Mahmoud Ezzat, who fled Egypt in 2013.
The list also includes Ibrahim Mounir, the Brotherhood's secretary-general in London, who has been convicted of planning attacks in Egypt from abroad.
Opposition leader in solitary confinement
Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, who dared to challenge Field Marshall Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in last March's controversial election, is sent to solitary confinement by an Egyptian Kangaroo Court.
The health of the Egyptian presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh is deteriorating in prison, with a slipped disc leaving him in pain and preventing him from walking unassisted, his son Ahmed said in a Facebook post.
Last February, during the lead up to a presidential election in which incumbent President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi ran for the second term, the authorities arrested Aboul Fotouh on charges that included membership in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group and “spreading false news”. He has since been held in solitary confinement.
Aboul Fotouh, a veteran politician and founder of the Strong Egypt opposition party, had criticised the election in an interview with Al Jazeera, saying it would not be free or democratic given the authorities’ crackdown on opponents.
66-year-old appeared at the prosecutors’ office for questioning Saturday, after which his pretrial detention was extended for another 15 days.“My father arrived at the prosecutors’ [office] … almost carried due to the spinal disc,” Ahmed Aboul Fotouh wrote.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America.
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