Why a terrorist group mourns ex Muslim brotherhood chairman?

CAIRO - 23 September 2017: Mourning an old man is a sign of humanity, but when the mourning comes from outlawed and terrorist organizations, this gives negative impressions on how influential the late person was to those organizations.

The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group issued three press releases mourning the group’s former supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, who died at al-Qasr al-Aini Hospital on Friday.

“If this world is fair, Akef should be equal to Mandela and Guevara,” according to a statement issued by terrorist group Hasm, which has claimed responsibility for many terrorist attacks in Egypt lately.

Hasm was not the only terrorist group that mourned Akef, but the Hamas movement did as well, releasing a press statement mourning the late leader of the Brotherhood.

The Hamas statement described Akef as one of the “pioneers who defended the Palestinian case.”

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s former supreme guide, Mahdi Akef died on Friday at the age of 89 following the deterioration of his health.

Akef served as the Brotherhood’s supreme guide from January 2004 to January 2010. He had been serving a prison sentence prior to being transferred to the hospital in January this year upon his lawyer’s request.

In 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison along with several other Muslim Brotherhood figures.

He had been arrested one day after the 2013 ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood, and he was charged with inciting violence outside the Brotherhood group’s headquarters in the Mokattam district of southern Cairo.