Three leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are to go on trial on charges of ‘inciting violence’ after the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3.
Mohamed Badie, the senior Brotherhood leader, and his two deputies, Khairat al-Shater and Rashad Bayoumy, are to be tried in Cairo later on Sunday.
Egypt’s state news agency, MENA, however, had earlier reported that the trio would refuse to attend the High Court session.
Badie says he does not recognize the interim government and has questioned the legitimacy of its prosecutors.
Egyptian authorities arrested the 70-year-old last week. Shater and Bayoumy had been arrested earlier.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak is also set to appear in court on Sunday.
Mubarak, who was released from prison on August 22, is to face charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolution. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in June 2012. In January, however, Egypt’s highest appeals court ordered a retrial.
Mubarak is now under house arrest at a military hospital following his release from jail.
On July 3, the head of Egypt’s armed forces, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, removed Morsi from office. The country’s first democratically elected president has been in detention ever since.
|