Morsi’s justice min. detained for 15 days pending investigation

CAIRO – 6 December 2018: The State Security Prosecution ordered the detention of former Justice Minister Ahmed Soliman for 15 days pending investigation over disseminating false news.

Soliman served during the term of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated ousted President Mohamed Morsi. Two security sources revealed that Soliman was arrested on Tuesday from his home in Upper Egypt’s Minya governorate and was transferred to Cairo on the following day morning, Reuters reported.

The prosecution accused Soliman of joining a terrorist group disrupting the constitution and laws, preventing the state's institutions and public authorities from carrying out their duties, attacking the personal freedom of citizens, and damaging national unity and social peace.

Soliman appeared many times in media channels opposing the Egyptian government and broadcasting from outside the Egyptian territory, where he used to insult the current Egyptian judicial system, Egyptian officials and the president.

He was interviewed via telephone in 2017 by the Doha-based Al-Jazeera Mubasher known for attacking the Egyptian regime.

Egypt and three Arab nations have cut diplomatic ties with Doha in June 2017 over charges of funding and harboring terrorists, and called on the peninsula to shut down Al-Jazeera network as part of several demands enlisted in order to end the boycott.

Lawyer Samir Sabry, known for filing legal complaints against anti-state individuals and parties, has filed numerous complaints to Egypt’s general prosecutor against the Muslim Brotherhood regime-affiliated justice minister.

In one of his complaints published in April 2018, Sabry said that Soliman incited against the Egyptian state and threatened the country’s president. He then called on other countries to intervene in the Egyptian affairs, specifically in the judicial affairs, the complaint read.

Soliman also addressed human rights organizations abroad and in the state that are hostile to Egypt, calling on them to stop intervening in Egypt’s affairs and sovereignty, according to Sabry’s complaint in April. Two other complaints were also published in July 2018.

Following the ouster of former Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the Egyptian state designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, and subsequently placed Muslim Brotherhood prominent figures on terror lists and confiscated their assets.