Egypt: Ex-presidential candidate Aboul Fotouh faces 5 terrorism charges

Egypt’s State Security Prosecution has accused former presidential candidate Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh of ties to a terror group and spreading fake news, lawyer Khaled Ali revealed yesterday.

Taking to Facebook, Ali wrote that the hearing held for Aboul Fotouh, the head of the Strong Egypt Party, lasted five hours.

Aboul Fotouh was arrested in February 2018 upon his return to Cairo from London. The lawyer was investigated on the case 440/2018, which links him to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

The Prosecution accused Aboul Fotouh of five charges, including leading a terrorist organisation, funding terrorist organisations, owning arms and ammunition, promoting the ideology of a terrorist organisation and spreading false news and propaganda inside and outside the country.

Aboul Fotouh’s arrest in 2018 came one day after his return from a trip to London, during which he was interviewed by the Qatari satellite channel Al Jazeera. In the interview, he criticised current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who orchestrated a bloody military coup against the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

He has previously been detained more than once under the government of long time Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

READ: Al Jazeera journalist arrested at Cairo airport