First appearance of acting Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Ezzat after 4 months in prison

Acting Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat appeared for the first time on Thursday in a cage at an Egyptian court in Cairo, Arabi21.com reported.

Ezzat appeared very pale and weak, according to Egyptian news websites, as he faced judges inside the court where he was being prosecuted for alleged terror and murder charges.

The judges presented him with the claims, on which he was sentenced for 25 years in absentia, but he denied them, stating: “This has never happened.” The hearing was adjourned until 4 January 2021, in order to bring in witnesses and a lawyer.

In August, Egyptian security services arrested Ezzat in an apartment in the east of Cairo, after years of being in hiding. Izzat then disappeared until Thursday, when he appeared in court.

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Speaking to Watan TV, Muslim Brotherhood Spokesman Talaat Fahmi conveyed: “It is a tragic image on the International Day for Human Rights (10 December) that portrays the conditions of a 76-year-old university professor, who has been detained over 100 days in a place that lacks humanitarian conditions.”

Fahmi confirmed: “Ezzat was not a terrorist. He is keen on protecting Egypt, the Arab and Islamic nation. There are more than 60,000 others inside Egyptian prisons.”

In February 2015, an Egyptian court sentenced four senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders to life sentences over claims of murder and creating chaos during the military coup carried out by Abdel Fattah El-Sisi against the late freely-elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.