Qatar harbors fugitive Brotherhood leaders

CAIRO – 6 June 2017: Since the ouster of former Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, several high-ranking leaders and prominent figures of the Brotherhood were forced to flee Egypt; many choose Qatar as their ultimate destination.

In an article published by Brotherhood leader Gamal Heshmat, he recalled escaping to Qatar through the Sudanese border after a verdict was issued against him in absentia.

Leading Brotherhood member and former Investment Minister Yehia Hamed, former Minister of Planning Amr Darrag and Al Jazeera news producer Mahmoud Hussein also resorted to Qatar when they were forced to flee Egypt.

Egyptian Islamist Assem Abdel Maged, a leader of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya, also first appeared in Qatar after receiving a life sentence in a case related to terrorism, as did Islamist scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, who was handed a life sentence in May 2015.

Qatar is also harboring Salafi preacher Mohamed Abdel Maksoud, sentenced to three years in jail for inciting violence, and leaders of Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiya who were involved in the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, including Assem Abdel-Maged and Tarek el-Zomor.

Other fugitive Brotherhood leaders and affiliates that Qatar is harboring include Al-Dafrawy Nassef, Ahmed el-Moghir, Amr Abdel-Hady and Ahmed El-Bakary.

In addition to the above figures, Qatar is also hosting former director of news at Al Jazeera's Arabic channel and Jordanian citizen Alaa Omar Mohamed Sablan, sentenced to death in absentia in 2016.

Qatar has refused to extradite the Egyptian fugitives to face verdicts issued against them in Egypt.

Two of seven leaders that Qatar announced had left its territory in 2014 have also returned to Doha: Ashraf Badr el-Din, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, and Gamal Abdel-Sattar, University of Al-Azhar Professor and leader of the Anti-Coup Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance.