Egypt confirms 183 death sentences, including Islamist chief

MINYA: An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed death sentences for 183 Islamists, including Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohamed Badie, a prosecutor said, after a speedy mass trial that sparked an international outcry.

The court in the central city of Minya had initially sentenced 683 people to death, but on Saturday it commuted death sentences of four to life in prison, including two women, and acquitted 496 other defendants.

Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year, hundreds of his supporters and Badie himself have been sentenced to death in trials criticised by Egyptian and global human rights bodies.

Those sentenced on Saturday, in a session that lasted about 15 minutes, were accused of involvement in the murder and attempted murder of policemen in Minya province on August 14, the day police killed hundreds of Morsi supporters during clashes in Cairo.

Saturday´s sentencings came after the court´s initial ruling was referred to Egypt´s top Islamic scholar as required under the country´s law.

In March, the same court presided by judge Said Youssef Sabry had reduced 492 of 529 death sentences to life in prison.

 

Egypt govt to quit, Sisi to make cabinet changes: media

CAIRO: Egypt´s military-installed government was due to resign Monday, with new President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expected to make changes to the cabinet on his first day in office, media reported.

The ex-army chief was sworn in on Sunday, nearly a year after ousting elected president Mohamed Morsi after millions protested against the Islamist´s divisive one year rule.

"The cabinet ended its last meeting on Monday morning ... during which it prepared its letter of resignation to be presented to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi," state news agency MENA reported.

Egyptian newspapers reported that Sisi is expected to ask interim prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab to continue in his post, but could make minor changes to the cabinet.

The government installed by Sisi, who has been the de facto leader since he ousted Morsi, has carried out a brutal crackdown on the former president´s Muslim Brotherhood in which more than 1,400 people have been killed and thousands more jailed.

Hours after his inauguration, Sisi, in a warning to the now blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood, said there will be "no leniency and truce with those who resort to violence".

"I am looking to a new era built on reconciliation and tolerance.. except with those who committed crimes or used violence as a tool," he said on Sunday in his first national address as president.

"I am saying clearly that those who shed the blood of the innocent and killed ... the sons of Egypt, they don´t have a place in (our) march."

At his inauguration, Western countries alarmed by the brutal police crackdown on dissent were represented mostly by low-level representatives.

Sisi becomes Egypt´s second elected president since a popular uprising overthrew longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011, unleashing more than three years of political turmoil.

Wary US unlikely to restore full Egypt aid soon

WASHINGTON: As Egypt prepares to swear in its fourth leader since 2011, a huge slice of $1.5 billion in US aid remains in deep-freeze amid fears the nation is sliding back into authoritarianism.

Former general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be crowned as the next president on Sunday after three years of political turmoil since the ousting of long-time iron-fisted leader Hosni Mubarak.

But far from welcoming Sisi as a step toward stability, some analysts are urging Washington to re-think its decades-old, military-based aid program amid concerns over human rights abuses and a crackdown on civil liberties.

In a sign of Washington´s unease, no senior US cabinet members will be attending the inauguration, with State Department Counselor Thomas Shannon asked to lead the delegation.

US officials announced in April they planned to resume some military aid to Cairo, suspended late last year, including 10 Apache helicopters for counterterrorism efforts in the Sinai peninsula.

But the aircraft remain in storage in the US, and a request to release some $650 million of the frozen aid has been put on hold in Congress by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of an appropriations subcommittee.

Leahy said he was "extremely disturbed" by Egypt´s "flouting of human rights" and would not sign off on delivering the aid "until we have a better understanding of how the aid would be used."

But there are also no current plans to unblock the rest of the suspended 2014 funding, which includes some military hardware such as Harpoon missiles and parts for Abram tanks.

Under legislation penned by Leahy, Kerry has to certify Egypt is on the path to democracy before all the aid can be released.

"There´s no timeline for when we have to make additional decisions about the assistance we haven´t yet certified for Egypt," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said, stressing there was "more work to do" and the administration was not "satisfied" about the pace of democratic progress.

While the US was ready to work with Egypt on badly-needed economic reforms, Harf was also non-committal on whether Washington would join a donors´ conference proposed this week by Saudi Arabia.

The Gulf kingdom, together with the United Arab Emirates, has vowed to pump some $10 billion into the Egyptian economy.

 

Sisi sweeps election as Egypt military reasserts grip

CAIRO: Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has scored a crushing presidential election triumph and consolidated the military´s grip, 11 months after the overthrow of the only Egyptian president not drawn from its ranks.

Ninety-six percent of voters, at least 21 million Egyptians, chose Sisi, who deposed elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, with ballots counted from all but a handful of 352 stations, state television reported Thursday.

Sisi´s only electoral rival, leftist leader Hamdeen Sabbahi, won less than four percent, according to the preliminary results.

The longtime opposition figure conceded defeat on Thursday but cast doubt on the estimated turnout figure of 47 percent after calls for a high participation rate as a sign of legitimacy.

Ahead of the final results due within a week, hundreds of Sisi supporters took to the streets on Wednesday night to celebrate, waving Egyptian flags, setting off fireworks and honking car horns.

"It´s a victory for stability," said Tahra Khaled, among the crowd in Cairo´s Tahrir Square, nerve centre of the mass protests that forced autocratic president Hosni Mubarak to step down in 2011.Sisi, who retired from the army to run for office, becomes Egypt´s fifth president from the military, reasserting the institution´s grip on politics in the Arab world´s most populous nation.

The military has always formed the backbone of political life in Egypt and the institution has provided its leaders ever since army officers toppled the monarchy in 1952.The only exception was Morsi, elected a year after the fall of Mubarak, himself a former air force commander.

"Few would have imagined that... three years after Mubarak´s toppling, a field marshall, a new pharaoh, would be elected again with 96 percent, without even unveiling a programme and without campaigning," said analyst Karim Bitar.

Sisi rode on a wave of support for a potential new strongman who can restore stability and revive the economy after three years of turmoil.

But his opponents say that since he ousted Morsi last July, Egypt returned to autocracy.A state crackdown targeting Morsi supporters has left at least 1,400 people dead in street clashes and seen more than 15,000 others jailed.

Dozens of young activists have also been jailed for violating a law banning all but police-authorised protests.

A European Union team that observed the election said Thursday the vote was conducted "in line with the law," although it regretted the lack of participation of some "stakeholders", in a likely reference to Morsi´s banned Muslim Brotherhood and youth dissident groups.

Egypt presidential election campaign opens after bombings

CAIRO: Campaigning opens Saturday in Egypt for a May election likely to be won by the ex-army chief who deposed the elected president, after deadly bombings underscored tensions ahead of the vote.

The May 26-27 presidential poll, meant to restore elected rule following the July overthrow of Islamist Mohamed Morsi, is widely seen as a done deal that will place former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in power.

His only rival, Hamdeen Sabbahi, came third in the 2012 election which Morsi won, and faces a groundswell of support for Sisi since the ouster of the divisive Islamist leader.

Sabbahi says he represents the ideals of the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.

But more than three tumultuous year later, many voters yearn for a self proclaimed strong leader such as Sisi to restore stability.

Sisi, reviled by Morsi´s Islamist supporters, has vowed to stamp out a surge in militant attacks such as the two bombings on Friday that killed a policeman in the capital and a soldier in the Sinai Peninsula.

If he wins, he will restore a line of military men at the helm of the country that was briefly interrupted by the civilian Morsi´s year in power.

Morsi´s Muslim Brotherhood and the militants are expected to increase protests and attacks should Sisi win, despite the widest crackdown on Islamists in decades. At least 1,400 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed in street clashes, including hundreds on August 14 alone, while thousands have been jailed and placed on trials.

Bombers kill soldier, policeman ahead of Egypt vote campaign

CAIRO: Bombers killed a policeman and a soldier in Egypt Friday, hours before campaigning starts in presidential polls which the former army chief who deposed the elected Islamist leader is expected to win.

Militants have unleashed a wave of attacks targeting security forces since presidential frontrunner Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Mohamed Morsi in July.

The army led by the now retired field marshall also installed an interim government that has waged a deadly crackdown on Morsi´s supporters and his Muslim Brotherhood movement.

A bomb struck a traffic police kiosk near a courthouse in the north Cairo district of Heliopolis, killing one policeman and wounding four others, interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif told.

The interior ministry later said the bomb had been concealed in a traffic light.

The attack came just hours after two suicide bombers attacked a checkpoint and a nearby bus outside the South Sinai provincial capital Al-Tur, security officials said.A soldier was killed and six policemen wounded by the first bomber, and five civilians wounded by the second, the officials said.

Security forces have deployed in strength to protect the resorts along the South Sinai coast that are a major plank of the country´s battered tourism sector.

Friday´s bombings came a day before the start of official campaigning in the May 26-27 presidential election which will see leftist leader Hamdeen Sabbahi as Sisi´s sole rival.

Sabbahi came third in the 2012 election which Morsi won, and is seen by supporters as the only leader representing the aspirations of those who revolted against longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011.A statement from the prime minister´s officer said, meanwhile, that Friday´s violence would not undermine Egypt´s determination to hold "fair presidential and parliamentary polls".

Morsi´s Brotherhood, which swept all elections since Mubarak´s fall, is blacklisted as a "terrorist" organisation and said it will boycott the polls.

Egypt reports first case of MERS virus

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities have detected the first case of a dangerous SARS-like virus in the country, the state news agency said Saturday.

MENA said a 27-year-old civil engineer was diagnosed Saturday morning after returning from Saudi Arabia, where the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, has been centered.

It said the man was quarantined upon his arrival at Cairo airport Friday and transported to a nearby hospital.

MERS belongs to a family of viruses known as coronaviruses that include both the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed some 800 people in a global outbreak in 2003.

MERS can cause symptoms such as fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure.

There is no vaccine or treatment for the MERS virus, and it is still unclear how it is transmitted. It also has been detected in Asia and Europe.

Saudi Arabia´s Health Ministry said late Friday that five more people in the kingdom have died from MERS.

The ministry says 92 people have died and 313 have contracted the virus in Saudi since September 2012.

King Abdullah fired his health minister Monday as officials struggle to alleviate public concerns amid a spike in infections.

On Saturday, the new health minister, Adel Faqih, announced that the country was reserving three medical centers in several cities for treating MERS cases exclusively, as part of a nation-wide plan for containing the disease´s spread.

In a statement on the ministry´s website, Faqih said the centers would be equipped with the latest medical technologies for diagnosing and treating the virus. He also said he plans to invite experts from Germany, Britain, France and the United States to study the outbreak. (AP)

Egypt sentences 529 Mursi supporters to death

CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Monday sentenced to death 529 supporters of ousted President Mohammad Mursi in connection with an attack on a police station that killed a policeman, convicting them after only two sessions in a mass trial that raised an outcry from rights activists.

The verdicts are subject to appeal and would likely be overturned, rights lawyers said. But they said the swiftness and harshness of the rulings on such a large scale deepened concerns that Egypt’s courts have been politicised and that due process is being swept away amid a month-long crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood supporters since the military removed the president last summer.Monday’s verdicts by a court in the city of Minya were the first such mass trial to issue death sentences.

Sisi remains Egypt defence minister as new cabinet sworn in

CAIRO; Egypt's army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is expected to stand for president, was retained as defence minister in the new cabinet sworn in Saturday, state television showed.
The new line-up led by prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab was unveiled after Hazem al-Beblawi's government resigned on Monday amid mounting criticism of its failure to tackle a floundering economy and worsening industrial unrest.
The new cabinet is tasked with organising a presidential election that is expected to bring Sisi, who is also a vice prime minister, to power.
Sisi, who has emerged as Egypt's most popular political figure since he led the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July, has not yet announced his candidacy in the election scheduled for this spring.
However, his aides say he has already decided to stand. In order to do so, Sisi must first step down as defence minister and army chief.
One of his aides told AFP this week Sisi is expected to stay on as defence minister until an electoral law has been passed.
The new government faces a host of challenges including huge security problems and economic woes, ahead of the election seen as a major step in a roadmap outlined by the interim military-installed authorities after Morsi's ouster.
Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected and civilian president, was ousted following mass protests against his one-year rule which was marred by allegations of power grabbing and worsening an already dilapidated economy.
Analysts say the formation of a new government is likely to work in Sisi's favour as he would like to stand in the election with a government that has a good record.
Since July, Egypt has been battling deadly street violence and militant attacks that have scared off foreign investors and tourists alike.
Beblawi's government had become increasingly unpopular despite announcing two economic stimulus packages aimed at kick-starting the economy with funds provided by friendly Gulf Arab states.
Many Egyptians, weary of the three years of turmoil since the 2011 toppling of former strongman Hosni Mubarak, view Sisi as a strong hand who can restore stability.