EGYPT’S AL-BELTAGY SAYS HE WAS JAILED FOR OPPOSING MUBARAK

 

    Cairo, 22 Muharram 1435/26 November 2013 (MINA) – A jailed Muslim Brotherhood leader on Monday (25/11) denied involvement in inciting the murder of demonstrators outside Cairo’s Ittihadiya presidential palace late last year when Mohamed Morsi was still president, Anadolu Agency reported.

     Mohamed al-Beltagi, secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which was headed by Morsi before the latter ran for president in 2012 polls, told interrogators that the charges against him were intended to punish him for opposing Egypt’s former autocratic president Hosni Mubarak.

      Al-Beltagi is accused – along with 14 others, including Morsi himself – of inciting the murder of three demonstrators outside the presidential palace last December.

      Last month, seven of the defendants, including al-Beltagi, appeared in court for the first time since Morsi’s July 3 ouster by the military (the remaining seven defendants are being tried in absentia). Presiding judges, however, quickly adjourned trial proceedings until January 8.

      Al-Beltagi told interrogators that “thugs” hired by what he described as the “old regime” had been responsible for killing demonstrators on behalf of what he called “the counter-revolution.”

       He argued that the entire case was “politically motivated” and that the allegations had been fabricated by the “coup-making regime.”

       Al-Beltagi went on to accuse investigators of trumping up the evidence brought against him since he stood on the other side of Egypt’s current political divide.

       He voiced surprise that he had been placed in solitary confinement “like a dangerous criminal” and despite the fact that he has not yet been convicted.

       He added that he had been subject to frequent verbal abuse since his arrival at the prison. But, could not obtain an immediate comment from the authorities regarding al-Beltagi’s allegations.

      Al-Beltagi said he had been charged in the case only after Morsi’s July 3 ouster – even though the demonstrators in question had been killed some six months earlier.

       He says he was not even in Cairo at the time of the presidential palace clashes, but had been attending a public rally in central Egypt’s Fayoum province. (T/P09/P03)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)