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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 March 2000 Issue No. 471 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 March 2000 Issue No. 471
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Focus Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters
Surprises galore in Brothers trial
ByKhaled DawoudMore than 250 lawyers, who are defending 20 Muslim Brotherhood members standing trial before a military court, are now in good spirits.
The defendants are accused of seeking to overthrow the government and revive the activities of an outlawed group. The course of the trial changed sharply two weeks ago, when the state security officer who had carried out the investigation made a bombshell announcement during his testimony. Officer Omar El-Shennawi told the military court that the source he used to make video and sound recordings of an alleged secret meeting of the defendants in early October was one of the men standing behind bars.
Lawyers, led by Raga'i Attia, pressed the officer to reveal the name of his source, arguing that he should not be standing behind bars because he was a state witness.
Of the 20 defendants, 16 were arrested for taking part in a meeting at the headquarters of an Islamic association for engineers in the southern Cairo suburb of Maadi. Police said that the assembled Brotherhood figures were plotting ways and means of taking over professional syndicates in the upcoming elections. But the defendants denied the charge, insisting that they met to discuss how to benefit from a court ruling ordering fresh elections at the Bar Association after years of sequestration.
Shennawi refused to reveal the name of his source on the grounds that this might threaten his life. The head of the Suez chapter of the Bar Association, Fawzi El-Qenawi, countered by claiming that the testifying state security officer was not the person referred to in official papers.
The lawyer claimed that he knew the officer identified in court as Omar El-Shenawi from an earlier encounter in Suez and that his first name was Sameh and not Omar.
The presiding military judge asked the officer to produce
his identity card, which did carry the name of Omar El-Shennawi. But Qenawi said that this was an identity card issued by the state security and insisted on seeing the officer's personal identity card and service file.
Mukhtar Nouh, a lawyer and one of the defendants in the case, told reporters from behind bars that the alleged presence of a government spy among the defendants was "a big lie". He added that this was "an attempt to cause divisions in our ranks" and asked each of the defendants to state whether he was the secret source referred to by the state security officer. As expected, all defendants denied that they were state security agents.
On 22 February, the court, in a session which lasted -- as others had -- for nearly 10 hours, began watching the videotape and listening to recordings made by the state security agent at the alleged secret meeting of the Brotherhood figures.
The sound quality was so bad that the presiding judge asked a "voice expert" brought in by the prosecutors how he managed to identify the voices of the different defendants and understand their conversation. The expert said that he had special advanced machines capable of separating all sounds and providing him with an exact text of what was being said.
One of the lawyers questioned the qualifications of the expert, claiming that he was a state television employee, not of the Ministry of Justice. But the prosecutor retorted that the expert had long experience in his field and his testimony had been sought in several previous cases involving suspects standing trial before military or state security courts. The court decided to adjourn the case until 7 March for additional questioning of witnesses by lawyers.
The leadership of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood insists that the trial of its members was politically motivated and mainly aimed at preventing the group from taking part in any public activity, whether in professional syndicates or in the upcoming parliamentary elections to be held next November.
According to analysts, the large number of lawyers who showed up at the Haikstep military camp, 35 kms northeast of Cairo, to defend the suspects, was linked to the expected elections at the Bar Association. The lawyers, representing various political orientations, include leftists, liberals and members of Islamic groups.
In 1995 and 1996, more than 60 Brotherhood members received prison sentences ranging between three and five years.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, nine Brotherhood members were arrested and the Prosecutor-General ordered them remanded in custody for 15 days pending a trial.
