Cairo: An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced two leading officials in the Muslim Brotherhood to 20 years in prison each on charges of kidnapping and torturing two policemen, the latest verdicts against leaders in the outlawed Islamist group.
The Cairo Criminal Court said that Mohammad Al Beltaji and Safwat Hejazi were involved in orchestrating the abduction and torture of the policemen during a weeks-long sit-in held by Islamists to protest the army’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammad Mursi in July of 2013.
The court also gave two pro-Brotherhood medics, who attended the sit-in held in the Cairo area of Raba’a Al Adawiya, 13 years in prison each for complicity in the torture of the policemen.
Late last month, another court sentenced Al Beltaji and Hejazi to life on charges of inciting deadly violence following the overthrow of Mursi, a senior official in the Brotherhood.
Thousands of the Brotherhood’s leading officials and followers have been rounded up since Mursi’s removal and put on trial.
The Islamist group, which the Egyptian government declared a terrorist organisation last December, has repeatedly dismissed the trials as a sham.
