Egypt court upholds prison term for Brotherhood leader

By Sayed Fathi and Mohamed al-Rayes

CAIRO

Egypt’s highest appellate court on Thursday upheld a five-year jail term handed down earlier against senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel-Rahman al-Bar, according to a judicial source.

The unnamed judicial source was quoted in local medial as saying that Egypt’s Court of Cassation had also upheld similar sentences handed down against two other high-profile Brotherhood members.

All three defendants were convicted earlier on charges of “attacking security forces” in July 2013 -- three weeks after Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president and a Muslim Brotherhood leader, was ousted in a bloody military coup.

According to the judicial source, the jail sentences are final and cannot be appealed.