Egypt court jails Brotherhood figures

A court in Egypt has sentenced two Muslim Brotherhood figures to 20 years in prison on charges of attempting to kill two policemen.

The court on Tuesday convicted Mohamed el-Beltagy, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, and senior cleric Safwat Hegazy of attempting to kill the policemen during demonstrations in downtown Cairo back in July 2013.

The trial had been delayed since last year as three sets of judges had stepped down from the case due to government pressure.

Egypt was gripped by mass protests after the military toppled the country’s first-democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi.

Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands arrested in the harsh security crackdown on protests in the African country.

The court also sentenced two doctors who treated wounded protesters at a field hospital during the violent clashes in Cairo to 15 years on charges of arming protesters.

Like many other Brotherhood members, Beltagy, a vocal critic of Morsi’s overthrow, is implicated in a number of other legal cases as well.

In April, he was sentenced to one year in jail for insulting the judiciary. He has also received a life sentence for inciting violence following Morsi’s overthrow by former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who later on became Egypt’s president.

Hegazy, a supporter of the Brotherhood and its media adviser, was arrested in August 2013 on his way to Libya.

Courts in Egypt have handed down harsh sentences against the Brotherhood, with its Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and about 200 others sentenced to death in a mass trial that caused outrage among international human rights groups.

NGD/HMV