Abu Ismail case adjourned to January, more Brothers arrested across the nation

The Cairo Criminal Court adjourned the trial of former Salafi presidential hopeful Hazem Salah Abu Ismail to January 20, the state-owned EgyNews reported on Thursday.

The ultraconservative Salafi preacher faces charges of forging official documents in an attempt to prove that his mother was not the holder of a foreign nationality during his presidential bid.

A judicial committee overseeing the 2012 presidential elections claimed that the outspoken preacher could not run for office because his mother held American nationality.

Egyptian law stipulates that presidential candidates must be born to parents who are Egyptian citizens and have never held any other nationality.

Although Abu Ismail claimed that his mother never had US citizenship, and presented documents proving this, the judicial committee rejected his request and disqualified him from the presidential race.

Also on Thursday, security forces in the northern city of Mansoura arrested four Brotherhood suspects allegedly involved in the killing of a taxi driver during a protest.

The victim, Mohamed Kamal Badr, 34, allegedly ran over a group of female protesters marching against the military-backed interim government. The protesters affiliated with the recently banned Islamist group then allegedly retaliated by killing the driver and setting his car on fire.

The official page of the Brotherhood’s outlawed political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), shared a YouTube video allegedly showing the driver running over demonstrators. Brotherhood members maintain that one of the female protesters is still in the hospital in critical condition, but this report could not be confirmed.

In addition, security forces in the southern governorate of Minya arrested 17 Brotherhood members on Thursday for allegedly storming police stations and government buildings following the bloody dispersal of two Brotherhood protest camps in August, EgyNews reported.

Some of the defendants are also accused of violating the Protest Law after organizing protests without notifying the authorities in advance, as the new law stipulates.

The prosecution in Alexandria also renewed the detention of five Brotherhood members for 15 days pending investigations into charges that they incited violence during protests, the state-owned Al-Ahram reported on Thursday.