Egypt Sentences Senior Brotherhood Leader to Life in Prison

Mahmoud Ezzat in court. AFP
Mahmoud Ezzat in court. AFP
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Egypt Sentences Senior Brotherhood Leader to Life in Prison

Mahmoud Ezzat in court. AFP
Mahmoud Ezzat in court. AFP

A senior leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood was convicted on terror charges and sentenced Thursday to life in prison, months after he was detained in a Cairo apartment.

According to the Middle East News Agency, a Cairo court found Mahmoud Ezzat, the acting supreme guide of the Brotherhood, guilty of terror acts that followed the 2013 military overthrow of president Mohammed Morsi.

In August, 76-year-old Ezzat was arrested after police found him hiding in an apartment in Cairo’s Fifth Settlement district.

According to authorities at the time, a search of the apartment uncovered computers and mobile phones with encrypted software that allowed Ezzat to communicate with group members in Egypt and abroad. Documents with “destructive plans” were also found, police said.

Ezzat was named the group’s acting leader in August 2013 after Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie’s arrest. He was convicted of several terror-related crimes and sentenced twice to death in absentia.

Following his arrest, he was retried, as Egyptian law dictates.



Syrians Recover Human Remains from Site Used by Hezbollah and Other Assad Allies

An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)
An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)
TT

Syrians Recover Human Remains from Site Used by Hezbollah and Other Assad Allies

An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)
An aerial view taken with a drone shows members of the Syrian Civil Defense group, the White Helmets, loading human remains in body bags on a truck in the Sayyida Zeinab district of Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024. (EPA)

The Syrian Civil Defense group, known as the White Helmets, uncovered at least 21 corpses as well as incomplete human remains on Wednesday in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb of the capital Damascus.

The discovery was made at a site previously used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran-backed Iraqi militias, both allies of deposed President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war.

The site included a field kitchen, a drugstore and a morgue, according to Ammar al-Salmo, an official with the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operated in areas that were controlled by the opposition.

Rescue teams in white hazmat suits searched the site, located not far from the revered shrine of Sayyida Zeinab. The remains were placed into black bags and loaded onto a truck as bystanders from the neighborhood looked on.

“Some (of the remains) are skeletons, others are incomplete, and there are bags of small bones. We cannot yet determine the number of victims,” al-Salmo said.

“Damascus has become a mass grave,” he said, pointing out the growing reports of war-related graves and burial sites in the capital and other places in Syria.

Iran and Hezbollah provided Assad’s government with military, financial and logistical support during the civil war.