Egypt's captain Mohamed Aboutrika celebrates after scoring against Brazil during their men's Group C football match at the London 2012 Olympic Games in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff July 26, 2012. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
CAIRO – 29 April 2018: The Cairo Criminal Court has reordered placing the Muslim Brotherhood organization and 1,529 defendants, including retired footballer Mohamed Aboutrika, on the terror list for another five years, the official state Gazette reported on Monday.
The list contained MB leaders, including former president Mohamed Morsi, his son Osama and his daughter Shaimaa. The list also included the group’s leader, Mohamed Badie, Khairat al-Shater and former Parliament Speaker Saad Al-Katatni.
Also placed on the list are former Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Bassem Ouda; businessman Hassan Malek; MB-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party spokesman Hamza Zawbaa; former presidential adviser Essam al-Erian; Mohamed Al-Beltagi; and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, head of the Doha-based International Union of Muslim Scholars.
The list also included Wasat Party Chairman Abul-Ela Mady and his deputy, Essam Sultan.
Defendants were placed on the terror list based on Egyptian law No. 8/2015, which gives the general prosecution the right to designate individuals and groups as terrorists in case it is proven that they carry out hostile activities, including intimidating people or harming them.
According to the law, the general prosecution shall create a proscribed terrorist list that shall then be referred to the Egyptian court, which will have the final say as to an individual’s/group’s designation.
The names of 299 defendants were removed from Egypt's terror list after the Court of Cassation accepted their appeal, according to media reports on April 17. The appeal denied an association between the defendants and the group known in the media as "Wilayat Sinai" (Sinai Province).
The Court of Cassation ruled on Thursday to uphold a decision to add 26 defendants on the terror list over accusations of being involved in a bombing that killed six security officers near the Giza Pyramids in 2015.
The prosecution drew a list of charges against the defendants, including forming a terror organization, leading an outlawed group to disable state institutions, and attacking the personal freedom of citizens guaranteed in the Constitution.
The charges also included harming national unity and social peace by forming special committees affiliated with the terror-designated Muslim Brotherhood group in Giza, aiming to topple the regime, and attacking individual, public and tourism establishments.
On April 19, Cairo’s Court of Cassation upheld a primary ruling to list 46 defendants as terrorists over the killing of former Attorney General Hisham Barakat.
The defendants are facing other charges that include being associated with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, aiming to foment instability in the country and illegally possessing firearms.
On April 22, the same court rejected an appeal submitted by 13 defendants over their placement on the terror list for their involvement in the case known as “Qualitative Committees”, approving their being listed on the terror list.
On April 24, a total of 161 defendants were added to the list of terrorist figures. The defendants were charged in the case known in the media as the “Ansar Beit al-Maqdes case”.
The defendants are charged with several crimes, such as joining a terrorist group aiming to destruct state institutions, assaulting the rights and freedoms of citizens, damaging national unity and social peace, and assaulting army and police forces.
Ansar Beit El Maqdis has claimed responsibility for most of the major attacks against security forces and their installations, with the deadliest assaults taking place in Sinai.
As part of Egypt’s efforts to fight terrorism, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi issued a law in 2015 that gives a broad definition of terrorist entities and the sentences against them.
The law defines terrorist entities as groups or individuals that, "through any means inside or outside the country, seek to call for the disabling of laws, or to prevent state institutions or public authorities from functioning, or seek to attack the personal liberty of citizens or other freedoms and rights granted to citizens by the law and constitution, or to harm the national unity and social peace."
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