• 20:33
  • Tuesday ,26 September 2017
العربية

Cairo court orders 215 defendants in Helwan Brigades case be re-added to terror list

By-Ahram

Copts and Poliltical Islam

00:09

Wednesday ,20 September 2017

Cairo court orders 215 defendants in Helwan Brigades case be re-added to terror list

The Egyptian state gazette on Monday published a court order by a Cairo criminal court which added 215 people who are facing trial for membership of the Helwan Brigades militant group to the country s terror list.

The defendants can appeal the new decision.
 
In April, the Court of Cassation overturned a previous lower court order placing the defendants on the terror list, citing insufficient reasoning, and sent the case back to the lower court.
 
The defendants are facing trial on a range of charges connected with the militant group s activities, including calling for the violation of the constitution and the law, preventing the state from exercising its role, assaulting personal freedoms of citizens, and harming national unity and social peace, as well as forming militant groups in the period between August 2013 and February 2015.
 
They have also been accused of committing other crimes, including the murder of a number of police members.
 
The trials have yet to reach a verdict.
 
Journalist Alyaa Awad, who was arrested in September 2014 and worked for the pro-Muslim Brotherhood news website Rassd, is the only female defendant in the case. She is accused of shooting one of the Helwan Brigades  videos,
 
Inclusion on the country s terror list means a ban on travel and a freeze on assets.
 
The current terror list includes more than 2,000 individuals, among them former president Mohamed Morsi, and former Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie.
 
Also listed are businessman Safwan Thabet, the founder of the Juhayna dairy company, and football star Mohamed Abou-Treika.