3 political figures to serve 10-15 year sentences on terror charges

Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, former chair of the Strong Egypt Party, is to serve out a 15-year prison sentence on terror charges that will keep him behind bars until 2035.

Party deputy head Mohamed al-Qassas and student leader Moaz al-Sharqawy are due to serve out 10-year sentences.

Abouel Fotouh once headed the party that sought to marry left and liberal with Islamist currents, mounting a campaign for the 2012 presidential elections. Now, Abouel Fotouh faces charges of “leading a terrorist group,” while the other defendants are being tried for “belonging to a terrorist group.”

Lawyer Ahmed Aboul Ola Mady told Mada Masr that he learned on Sunday that rulings against all three defendants, which were first issued by emergency courts last year, had been made final in June this year.

Abouel Fotouh was arrested in early 2018 and held in remand detention for over three years — long over the legal limit of two years detention before trial for the most extreme offenses. He was referred to trial in August 2021 before an emergency state security court, just two months before the years-long state of emergency was to expire. The court sentenced Abouel Fotouh to 15 years the following May. The time he was held in remand is to be deducted from his sentence.

Mady said he learned from the Public Prosecution Office on Sunday that the ruling against Abouel Fotouh had been ratified on June 13 by the military ruler, who is the president or a delegate of the president. Emergency state security court rulings are not subject to appeal via the courts and can only be upheld or revoked by the military ruler.

Abouel Fotouh was convicted of ten charges, including “leadership in the terrorist Brotherhood group.” The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Abouel Fotouh was a member until leaving the party in the 1990s, is classed as a terrorist organization in Egypt.

Abouel Fotouh was also convicted of “collecting, receiving, possessing, supplying, transferring and providing money and weapons” to the Muslim Brotherhood, providing a safe haven for terrorists, “creating and providing a headquarters for trainings on using traditional weapons” and “disposing of and publishing publications that include promoting” the Muslim Brotherhood.

He was also convicted of “broadcasting false news” and promoting terrorist acts, with the court notes directly indicating an appearance he made on Al Jazeera in which he argued that “terrorist acts are revenge for an injustice that occurred to the families of their perpetrators” and in which he stated that the cessation of Egypt’s sovereignty over the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir was done in the interests of a foreign country, as well as a BBC interview in which he said the state was responsible for forced disappearances.

The three remaining charges included the possession of two automatic rifles, two firearms, a shotgun and ammunition without a license.

Qassas, who was also arrested in 2018, was held in remand detention for only a few months. Sharqawy, meanwhile, who was also arrested in 2018, was released in 2020 and arrested again earlier this year.

Aside from Abouel Fotouh and Qasass, 23 other defendants were prosecuted in the same case, the most prominent of which are the deceased Acting General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Ibrahim Mounir and Mohamed Ezzat, a leader in the group.