PROSECUTION DISMISSES CHARGES AGAINST 228 ALLEGED MORSI SUPPORTERS

Pro Morsi Supporters. Photo: Mai Shaheen — **Supports of the deposed President Mohamed Morsi chanting against army chief Abdel Fattah El-Sisi** (Photo: Mai Shaheen)

Cairo, 2 Sha’ban 1435/31 May 2014 (MINA) – Egypt’s Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat has dismissed charges against 228 alleged supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, accused of violent acts in August last year, because of a lack of evidence, reported Al-Ahram’s Arabic website.

The accused were facing charges of storming and torching the prosecutors’ office and the office of a local police traffic unit in Minya’s Beni Mazar in mid-August, following the violent dispersal of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo which left up to 1,000 people dead, according to local and international rights groups.

After the dispersal of the protests, several security buildings and dozens of churches were attacked, Ahramonline quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Since the ouster of Morsi, Islamist militants have stepped up attacks against security leaving so far more than 500 security personnel dead.

A months ago, an Egyptian judge has sentenced 683 alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death, including the group’s supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, and confirmed the death sentences of 37 of 529 its supporters.

Outside the courtroom on Monday, when news of the sentences broke, families of the accused began to scream and several women fainted, falling to the ground.

Mohamed Elmessiry, an Amnesty International researcher monitoring the cases, said they “lacked basic fair trial guarantees”.

The defendants from the first case whose death sentences were not upheld were each sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Many of the lawyers for the accused boycotted the hearing, demanding that the judge be recused and calling him a “butcher”.

Mohamed Abdel Waheb, a lawyer who represents 25 of the defendants, said the verdict was handed down in a court session lasting less than five minutes.

Previously, he said, the single session in the trial lasted just four hours, during which the judge refused to listen to any arguments from the defence.

Abdel Nasser Hassanien, standing outside the courtroom, said five of his relatives were among those sentenced to die, including his brother, Ahmed Hassenein Abdelatty, 22.

“Of the five only one is related to the Muslim Brotherhood, and he didn’t do anything,” he said.(T/P03/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)