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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Curtain falls on a saga
By Khaled Dawoud
After three unexplained postponements and over four months of protracted deliberations, the Supreme Military Court has finally closed the book on a marathon case -- the longest in its history -- involving 20 leading members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Fifteen defendants were sentenced to jail terms ranging from three to five years. Five were acquitted. They had been accused of joining an illegal organisation and "infiltrating" professional syndicates, universities and trade unions.
(l-r) Nouh, Badawi and Sami during the hearing
The chief suspect, Mohamed Badi' Sami, 58, head of the pathology department at the school of veterinary medicine in Beni Suef, was sentenced to five years. Given the same jail term was Saad Zaghlul El-Ashmawi, a 45-year-old physician and secretary-general of the Cairo chapter of the Doctors Syndicate, and 34-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim El-Halawani, a former teacher. El-Ashmawi was among dozens of Brotherhood figures who were arrested in early 1995 and put on a similar military trial. He spent three years in jail before his release in 1998. Less than a year later he was re-arrested and faced charges similar to those in 1995. This time, however, the penalty was severer.
Twelve other defendants, mostly doctors and engineers, were sentenced to three years behind bars. They included Mukhtar Nouh, a former MP (1987-1990), lawyer and member of the disbanded Council of the Bar Association. Nouh is believed to be a rising star in Brotherhood ranks, representing a relatively younger generation compared to the organisation's aging leadership. Nouh and Khaled Badawi, a lawyer and member of the dissolved council, had been expected to be among the top competitors in delayed elections for the Bar Association. No date has been set for the elections. Originally, they were to take place in July but a series of appeals and counter-appeals by lawyers delayed the process.
Badawi also received three years. Five defendants were acquitted.
Sixteen out of the 20 defendants were arrested on 14 October, 1999 while taking part in what the prosecution described as a "secret organised" meeting in the southern Cairo suburb of Maadi. The prosecution said they met to "plot" the group's comeback in several professional syndicates. Some defendants were arrested at their homes.
The 16 defendants held their meeting shortly after a Cairo court ruled in mid-1999 that the Bar Association, under judicial sequestration for three years, should organise elections. With police cracking down on the Brotherhood in 1995, ending nearly 20 years of official tolerance, the government sought to terminate the group's control over several influential professional syndicates. The 80-year-old Brotherhood, the country's largest political Islamist organisation, had allegedly used the syndicates to counter the government's refusal to allow them their own political party.
On Sunday, only a few reporters, lawyers and family members were allowed inside the Haikstep military camp, 35 kilometres northeast of Cairo, where the majority of military trials have taken place. As expected, sentencing was brief. The judge, whose name cannot be published for security reasons, read out a brief statement in which he said that after months of hearings and having heard the accounts of dozens of witnesses, "the court was certain that the defendants were members of an illegal group," which President Gamal Abdel-Nasser's government had dissolved in 1954.
"It was proven to the court that the group's illegal acts harm national unity and social peace at a time the country is enjoying security, freedom and democracy. The group also sought to push society in the wrong direction in order to prevent its development and advancement, harming the country's supreme interests," the judge said.
He added that papers and documents seized from the defendants "proved that this group had been active among students, in schools and colleges, trying to recruit new members, especially those in their graduating year. After joining the group and pledging loyalty to it, [the students] are indoctrinated and readied to become members of professional syndicates after their graduation in order to provide support for the group in these syndicates." The court added that the defendants also planned similar moves among members of professional syndicates and workers, using audio and video tapes and computer disks, and organising seminars to spread the Brotherhood's ideology.
Moments after the judge finished reading out the sentences, the defendants shouted: "God is our only supporter" (hasbuna Allah wa ne'mal-Wakil). Even those who were acquitted wept in their cage, saying that the prison sentences passed against their colleagues were "unjust."
The hearings were the longest in the history of military trials. In 1992, the government started putting militants on military trials in an attempt to deter escalating violence by handing down speedy and harsh sentences. Dozens of cases, sometimes including up to nearly 100 defendants, would be heard in only four to six weeks. Even large numbers of Brotherhood leaders who were tried in 1995 and 1996 were sentenced after just a few court sessions.
Yet with the last 20 defendants arrested more than a year ago, hearings opened on 25 December and did not finish until 11 months later. Even before the court announced for the first time, on 25 June, that it would hand down sentences on 30 July, defendants were already appealing to the court to wind up the case after months of lengthy sessions. On 30 July, the verdict was deferred to 3 September, then to 7 November and finally to 19 November.
Mohamed Tosson, head of a large team of lawyers defending the defendants, said the course of the trial "proves beyond any doubt that this is a political [as opposed to a criminal] case." He added that "in the beginning, the sentences were postponed when elections at the Bar Association were expected to take place, mainly in order to prevent the defendants from taking part in them. When parliamentary elections started on 18 October, we were also certain that there would be no sentences until the polling is over."
Essam El-Eryan, a former MP and leading Brotherhood figure who was sentenced to five years in 1995 and released earlier this year, said that the government simply did not know what to do with the defendants. "If they were found innocent, everybody would wonder why 20 people were kept behind bars for more than a year. If they received harsh sentences, sympathy with the group would grow in any upcoming elections."
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