|
 The arrest of Essam el-Erian, the deputy leader of the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, was the latest in a wide-ranging crackdown and prosecution of both the Islamist group's leaders and its rank-and-file since the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, who also hails from the Brotherhood.
Morsi, himself in detention, is held at an undisclosed military location since his ouster on July 3. He is facing charges of inciting supporters to murder his opponents while in office. Morsi's trial is due to begin next week, and it is not yet clear if the 69-year old ousted president will appear in court.
El-Erian is also one of the defendants in the Morsi trial, which opens Nov. 4. He is accused of inciting Brotherhood followers to break up anti-Morsi protesters gathered outside the presidential palace late last year.
In photographs aired on state media following his arrest, the 59-year-old el-Erian is wearing a white galabiya, the traditional male robe, and a skullcap, and flashes a smile to the cameras. He is the latest senior Brotherhood leader arrested on warrants from state prosecutors who have drawn up a list of accusations against the group's key figures, ranging from inciting violence to providing weapons to supporters and threatening public order.
The official state news agency MENA said el-Erian was arrested after a raid on an apartment in the eastern suburb of New Cairo, where he had been hiding. He was later transferred to the Torah prison complex in southern Cairo, which is where most of the group's arrested leaders are held.
The agency said he will be interrogated at Torah on accusations of inciting violence in a number of anti-government protests.
While Morsi was in power, el-Erian was a frequent speaker in the media, often causing a stir as he turned from a moderate to a hard-liner member of the group.
During a large-anti-Morsi demonstration last December outside the presidential palace in Cairo, el-Erian went on Misr 25 TV, which is affiliated with the Brotherhood, and called on the group's supporters to head to the scene "in the tens of thousands, to besiege those thugs" and expose an alleged conspiracy against the elected president.
At least 10 people died in subsequent clashes outside the palace. The Nov. 4 trial of Morsi and el-Erian, along with a dozen others, is on charges stemming from that incident.
[to top of second column] |
 In other comments that caused controversy, el-Erian -- who at the time was Morsi's adviser -- in a TV interview in January urged Egyptian Jews in Israel to return home, saying how Egypt was now a democracy and claiming the Jewish state won't survive. Morsi's office dissociated the president from the comments. El-Erian later quit his post as Morsi's adviser.
From hiding, el-Erian had distributed messages to followers, urging them to denounce the coup and demand Morsi's reinstatement. In a recent pre-recorded message aired on the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network, el-Erian criticized the military and the interim authorities and called on supporters, including students, to keep up their protests.
Amid the violence surrounding the crackdown and a wave of arrests of thousands of Brotherhood supporters, calls for reconciliation that would return the group -- which dominated elections after the 2011 fall of Hosni Mubarak -- back into the political system have gone nowhere, with neither side giving ground.
El-Erian's arrest came just hours after three judges presiding over a trial of nearly three dozen Brotherhood members, including its top spiritual leader and its chief financier, stepped down on Tuesday after security agencies refused to let the defendants attend the courtroom sessions.
The move was a sharp pushback from within the establishment over the conduct of the trial amid criticism by the Brotherhood that wide-ranging prosecutions of its leaders, including Morsi and the group's spiritual guide, Mohammed Badie, are only vengeful show trials.
The Brotherhood and allied Islamists reject Egypt's new government, insisting that Morsi be reinstated in office. They have continued protests, often leading to clashes with security forces that have killed well over 1,000 people. The Brotherhood says its protests are peaceful, but authorities accuse them of attacking security forces and provoking violence.
[Associated
Press; By SARAH EL DEEB]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
