Cairo: An Egyptian court Saturday sentenced Yasser Meherz, the spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, to two years in prison and ordered him to pay a bail of 500 Egyptian pounds (Dh 263) for release, judicial sources said.
Meherz was charged with inciting and organizing anti-government protests against the army’s overthrow of president Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July last year.
Meherz, who was arrested in April, pleaded not guilty. He had served as a spokesman for the Freedom and Justice Party, the first ever political party of the Brotherhood.
Meherz told the Misdemeanour Court that he resigned from FJP following Mursi’s ouster and was never a member of the Brotherhood, the sources said.
The Supreme Administrative Court is expected next month to rule on several lawsuits requesting FJP dissolved and its assets seized.
Last December, the government announced the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation after accusing it of involvement in deadly violence.
Hundreds of the Islamist group’s officials have been detained since Mursi’s toppling in the toughest security crackdown on the Brotherhood since it was set up in 1928.
