3 - 9 January 2002
Issue No.567
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 3 - 9 January 2002 Issue No.567 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Trials aplenty
The Supreme Military Court resumed this week trials of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and suspected militants charged with "plotting to assassinate top figures," reports Khaled Dawoud
Supreme Military Court yesterday began listening to the testimony of security officers who took part in the arrest of 22 leading Muslim Brotherhood figures who are charged with being members in an illegal organisation and trying to incite the public against the regime.
The Brotherhood figures, most of whom are university professors, doctors and engineers, were arrested in early November and referred to a military court, reflecting the seriousness of the charges made against them.
Brotherhood leaders believe the latest crackdown to be linked to the ongoing US military campaign in Afghanistan. After the United States began bombing Afghanistan in response to the 11 September attacks, Brotherhood members held several protest rallies at Al- Azhar mosque and several universities.
At a court session on 27 December, the defence team challenged the presiding judge, who, for security reasons cannot be named, asking for his withdrawal. Sayed Hussein, one of the defence lawyers, said that the judge's sentencing of other Brotherhood members to prison terms of three to five years in a similar case suggested that he was biased. However, Hussein told Al-Ahram Weekly that the challenge was made for the record since laws pertaining to civil courts, allowing for challenging judges, do not apply to military tribunals. Consequently, the judge turned down the request and adjourned the case until 2 January.
In court on Thursday, the lawyers also discussed evidence seized during the arrest of the defendants. The items included books, leaflets and computer disks. "This is material which is available at bookstores," Hussein told the court.
Topping the list of the 22 defendants is Mahmoud Ghozlan, the most senior Brotherhood figure to stand trial since the government started cracking down on the group in 1995. Ghozlan has been described as the "third in command" in the group's secret leadership, known as the Guidance Bureau.
The Brotherhood issued an appeal addressed to President Hosni Mubarak on 27 December, asking him to reconsider his decision to refer the 22 defendants to a military court. The statement claimed that military courts violated basic human rights and said this particular case against the 22 defendants "is not based on any tangible evidence."
The statement also reiterated allegations that the military trial was aimed at satisfying the United States, which had asked the entire international community to step up campaigns against "terror." "It is not true, as certain state services believe, that these trials [of the Islamists] will satisfy powerful interests in the West," said the statement.
Another military judicial panel will also reconvene on Saturday to resume the trial of 94 militants suspected of joining a previously unknown group, called Al-Wa'ad, or the Promise. The defendants, who include two prominent mosque preachers, were accused of plotting to assassinate top government officials and well-known secular intellectuals and artists. Seven defendants are being tried in absentia.
In its session of the panel hearing of the Al-Wa'ad case on Monday, the court finished listening to testimonies of security officers who took part in the arrest of the defendants in late May. Lawyers vehemently denied in court that the defendants, who include three men from the Russian republic of Daghestan and three Egyptians who hold dual nationality, had established a secret organisation or that they were planning to assassinate top officials, including the president and several ministers.
They said the main reason that the defendants were arrested in May was due to suspicions that they were raising funds to support the Palestinian uprising, and the militant group Hamas in particular. They were also suspected of seeking to recruit young militants to send them to Chechnya to fight Russian troops.
On Saturday, the lawyers will put witnesses on the stand in an attempt to prove that the main defendant in the case, Sheikh Fawzy El-Sayed, is a "moderate" mosque preacher who has never called upon worshippers to rebel against the government. At the opening of the case last month, El-Sayed told Al-Ahram Weekly that he had condemned the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington and claimed that he had always had good relations with security organisations.
Like the Brotherhood, however, he claimed that the referral of defendants to a military court and the "laying of new charges like planning to assassinate officials," were linked to the US-led war on terrorism.
More alleged militant Islamists are expected to be referred to military courts this year. Security sources said they were preparing a case against more than 170 suspected members of the country's largest armed militant group, Al- Gama'a Al-Islamiya, which was accused of taking part in anti- government attacks between 1992 and 1997.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page