Egypt: Imprisonments for 14 Muslim Brotherhood leaders

The Egyptian Supreme State Security Criminal Court at the Tura Courts Complex, south of Cairo, issued a judgment on Thursday convicting defendants in the case known in the media as “returnees from Kuwait” with penalties ranging from life to rigorous imprisonment.

The judgment issued, headed by counsellor Moataz Khafagy, included 14 defendants from the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood group opposed to the ruling, which the Egyptian authorities classify as “terrorists”, according to Egyptian media.

The Egyptian National Security Agency accuses the convicts of holding organisational meetings and assigning leaders and members of the group fleeing to the State of Kuwait: “Of planning to commit hostile operations within Egypt against state institutions, to ban them from performing their works, disrupting the provisions of the constitution and laws, and striking national unity and social peace, reaching to the overthrowing the country’s ruling system”.

READ: Egypt’s ex-presidential candidate brutally attacked in Tora Prison

Among the defendants in the case are: Samir Younis Al-Khudari, head of the administrative office for members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, Abu Bakr al-Fayoumi, Hussam Muhammad Al-Adel, Najeh Awad Bahloul, Moamen Abu Al-Wafa, Abd Al-Rahman Muhammad, Abd Al-Rahman Ibrahim, Walid Suleiman Muhammad, Islam Eid, Khaled Al-Mahdi, Muhammad Khalaf, Islam Ali and Faleh Hassan.

Kuwait handed over the arrested persons to Egyptian security in mid-2019.

At that time, the Muslim Brotherhood responded and confirmed that the arrested persons were Egyptian citizens who entered Kuwait and worked according to the legal procedures regulating expatriates’ residence in Kuwait. None of them was proven to have violated the laws of the country.

Human Rights Watch criticised the Kuwaiti step, considering the deportation: “Violates Kuwait’s obligations under international law.”