Court ruling unfreezes assets of 146 alleged Muslim Brotherhood members

A court ruled on July 25, 2023 to lift freezes on the assets of 146 people who were accused of being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

As a result of their suspected affiliation with the organization, which is designated a terrorist organization in Egypt, the 146 individuals have not had access to their funds and property for at least five years.

Since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, assets owned by thousands of people and organizations designated as terrorist were seized for transfer into the state treasury, a Court of Cassation source previously told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.

To try and understand why the asset freeze has suddenly been rolled back for these people, Mada Masr spoke with two lawyers, a judicial source and a source close to the Muslim Brotherhood. The decision is the first of its kind in 10 years, said lawyers Khaled Ali and Ahmed Abu al-Ola Madi.

The judicial source, meanwhile, told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that the decision comes on the back of security recommendations to begin resolving the issue of property belonging to those associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which authorities began moving into the state treasury around two years ago.

Assets belonging to the 146 people — along with hundreds of others — were frozen in two judicial decisions taken in September and December 2018 on the basis that their owners were Muslim Brotherhood members, funders, or supporters.

The freezes were requested by a specialized entity created for this purpose: the Committee on Procedures for Seizure, Inventory, Management and Disposal of Terrorist Groups’ and Terrorists’ Funds.

Yet the funds were never sent to the state treasury, and in March and May 2022, according to the verdict issued by the court two weeks ago, the committee decided to revoke the reasons for the freezes on the basis that they were no longer justified.

More than a year later, and prompted by the chairman of the committee for handling frozen terrorist assets, the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters ruled on July 25 that the asset freezes should be lifted.

Under the new decision, the justice minister, central bank governor and Real Estate Registry head are now required to lift freezes on all real estate, liquid and moveable funds, bank accounts, deposits, safes, shares, bonds and Treasury bills belonging to all 146 individuals.

At this point, the two lawyers said, the committee is saying that there’s no justification for the freezes, but it did not clarify why these 146 people were chosen and not the many others affected by similar asset freezes.

“The only similarity between the 146 individuals is that none of them are leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood’s first or second line,” said a source close to the group while speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.

It’s not totally clear why these people were targeted by the court and the committee in 2018, said Abu al-Ola Madi, nor why the seizure is being lifted now. The people whose funds were seized had challenged the asset freezes before, he added, and the court rejected them all.

Ali, meanwhile, who previously lodged an appeal to contest the constitutionality of the law on seizing funds, traced the history of similar asset freezes. The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters ruling in Case 2315/2013 designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, after which the Justice Ministry established a committee to decide to whom and what the ruling should apply and how their assets should be handled.

Yet the committee's decisions were challenged before the Supreme Administrative Court, which nullified many of them. It was then that the president issued a new law governing procedures for seizing funds in April 2018.

The 2018 law meant the committee could request a temporary order from the head of the South Cairo Court to seize the funds of individuals deemed to belong to the Muslim Brotherhood on the basis of documents attached to the order and without a hearing or defense. These orders were very difficult to appeal, Ali explained.