Egyptian security forces seize Brotherhood members' assets

Egyptian authorities yesterday seized two supermarket chains owned by two prominent Muslim Brotherhood members.

Judge Wadee Hanna, the secretary of a government committee charged with identifying and managing Brotherhood assets, said the committee had decided to seize the supermarket chain Zad, which is owned by the detained Deputy Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat Al-Shater. The committee also seized Seoudi, another chain owned by businessman Abdulrahman El-Seoudi.

The government formed this committee after a decree declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation and ordered the confiscation of its assets.

“The decision to seize [the two chains] came after it was proven that the two businessmen who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood are involved in funding the group’s activities,” Hanna said.

“We received an order from the committee to seize the chains, Zad and Seoudi, and we just went and took them,” a security source said.

Al-Shater’s daughter Aisha said a large number of security forces stormed all the branches of the chain that her father owns as well as the chain owned by the Seoudi family yesterday.

“They confiscated all contents of some of the stores and emptied other stores of their goods,” Aisha told Anadolu Agency.

Anadolu could not obtain an immediate response to these accusations from the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Members of the Seoudi family could not be reached for comment.

Ali Kamal, a member of the legal committee of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, told Anadolu that “confiscation should be done at a legal level, not by damaging the contents inside the stores”.

Kamal noted that the stores are owned by individuals, not by the Muslim Brotherhood as an organisation.

Al-Shater has been in jail since July 6, 2013, on various charges, including inciting violence.

Before the January 25 revolution erupted in 2011, Al-Shater had been detained for six months for a total of 12 years.

In September, an Egyptian court banned the Muslim Brotherhood and all affiliates in Egypt and ordered the confiscation of all of its assets.