Trial Delayed for Muslim Brotherhood Leaders, Mubarak Appears in Court
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Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images(CAIRO) — Members of the Muslim Brotherhood taken into custody by the Egyptian government won’t stand trial until later this fall after learning Sunday that their hearings were pushed back until October 29.
Four Brotherhood members, including leader Mohammed Badie, have been detained while two others are still at-large.
All six have been charged with instigating murder after nine anti-Brotherhood demonstrators died at the beginning of huge protests in late June that ultimately led to Islamist President Mohamed Morsi being removed from office by Egypt’s powerful military.
Since then, the interim-government has systematically dismantled the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which critics charge was only concerned with establishing an Islamist state during Morsi’s year-long tenure.
However, tens of thousands of Morsi supporters remain determined to reinstate him as president even as a government crackdown on dissent has cost well over 1,000 lives over the past eight weeks.
Meanwhile, former President Hosni Mubarak also made his first appearance in court Sunday since being released from jail last week.
Mubarak, who resigned his presidency in February 2011 during the so-called “Arab Spring,” is charged with ordering the deaths of as many as 900 protesters in the run-up to his leaving office.
He was found guilty last year on the same charge and sentenced to life in prison but the conviction was overturned and a new trial ordered. Seven other Mubarak former aides are also on trial.
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