An exceptional Egyptian court sentenced Adbel Moneim Abou Foutouh, the losing candidate in the 2012 presidential election, to 15 years in prison for “false information” and “attacking state security,” a judicial source said on Sunday.
In preventive detention since February 2018 -a prison regime limited by law to two years-, Aboul Foutouh was sentenced along with 24 other Islamist opponents.
Among them, Mahmoud Ezzat, former supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, already sentenced to life imprisonment for “espionage”, and the number two of Aboul Foutouh’s Misr al-Qawiya party, Mohammed al-Qassas.
Aboul Foutouh was arrested on his way back from London, where he had given interviews criticizing the government and calling for a boycott of the presidential election which predictably elected Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.
In 2012, he was a candidate in the elections won by the Muslim Mohamed Morsi – ousted by Sissi, then head of the army, a year later.
Aboul Foutouh, included in the list of “terrorists” and whose assets were confiscated for four years, was accused of being a member of an “illegal organization” before an anti-terrorist court.
But if he was previously close to the Muslim Brotherhood, before being removed from its leadership in 2009, Aboul Foutouh now defends himself by saying that he has no connection with the group.
His lawyer, Khaled Ali, a leading figure on the left and also a former presidential candidate, presented to the judges in April, as evidence in his defense, videos filmed by the secret services of the Egyptian army without Aboul Foutouh’s knowledge, criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to Amnesty International, Egypt holds the world record for death sentences, with more than 350 in 2021.
The country has more than 60,000 prisoners of conscience, according to NGOs, who distrust Sissi’s “national dialogue” offer presented at the end of April, but which has so far only led to the release of about forty political prisoners.
Source: Observadora
