Egypt Brotherhood No. 2 to appear in court for 1st time Thursday

CAIRO

By Islam Mosaad

The deputy supreme guide of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Khairat al-Shater is set to appear in court onThursday for the first time since last summer's ouster of elected president Mohamed Morsi.

Al-Shater– along with 16 other senior Brotherhood members, including group leader Mohamed Badie– is charged with inciting the murder of opposition demonstrators last year.

The charges relate to violence that erupted outside the Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo's Moqattam district last June, during which at least nine people were killed and scores injured.

The list of defendants also includes Badie's other deputy,Rashad Bayoumi; Saad al-Katatni, leader of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party; and senior party leaders Essam Erian and Mohamed al-Beltagi.

Also facing the same charges are former Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef, former youth minister Osama Yassin and former presidential aide Ayman Hodhod.

Prosecutors accuse the defendants of distributing weapons and planning attacks on opposition protesters outside the group's headquarters.

The defendants, for their part, dismiss allthe accusations against them as politically motivated.

Al-Shater's trial will be held in a police institute, adjacent to southern Cairo'sTora Prison, where the defendants are currently being held, a judicial source said.

The source described al-Shater, a wealthy businessman known for his commercial activities in several fields, as "the most dangerous Brotherhood leader."

He went on to describe the leading Brotherhood member as "the brains of the group and its main financier."

Egyptian authorities have unleashed a massive crackdown on the Brotherhood since the bloody dispersal last summer of two pro-Morsi protest camps in which hundreds of demonstrators were killed by security forces.

Since then, Egypt's military-backed authorities have rounded up hundreds of the Brotherhood's senior and mid-ranking members, hundreds of whom remain in detention.

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