Egypt jails top Morsi aide over abuse of power
An Egyptian court has jailed a top aide to former president, Mohamed Morsi, further intensifying the crackdown on members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood party.
A criminal court in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Wednesday handed the three-year sentence to Refaa el-Tahtawi on charges of power abuse.
Tahtawi, who served as chief of staff during Morsi’s tenure, was convicted of hiring people that were banned from public services. According to the court ruling, Tahtawi had given a job to a man who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in the 1990s.
The man, who himself received a one-year sentence on Wednesday for accepting the post, had been convicted of working for a terrorist group and setting fire to several video clubs in Cairo in those years.
The verdict is viewed as another sign of the President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s intolerance of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a party designated as terrorist in December 2013. Sisi, a former army chief, led a popular coup d’état in July 2013 which saw Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, deposed. Morsi and his close followers, along with hundreds of middle-ranking Muslim brotherhood members are currently on trial on a number of charges.
On Saturday, the same court in Cairo endorsed the death sentences given to senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Badie, and 11 other defendants, who were charged with instigating violence following Morsi’s ouster.
The court also handed life terms to 23 detained defendants, among them Mohamed Soltan, a US-Egyptian citizen who is on hunger strike, and Gehad Haddad, a former spokesman for the Brotherhood’s political arm.
The Egyptian government’s suppression of Morsi’s supporters has led to the deaths of more than 1,400 people and the arrests of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.
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