AN Egyptian emergency court sentenced an ex-presidential candidate to 15 years in prison for “spreading fake news” and “incitement against state institutions”, said judiciary sources.

Abdelmoneim Aboul Fotouh has been in detention since 2018. His trial started in November, though Egyptian law sets a legal cap of two years for pre-trial detention.

He was sentenced alongside 24 others, including Muslim Brotherhood members. He, however, had defected from the group years before.

Ex-Brotherhood supreme guide Mahmoud Ezzat, also received a 15-year sentence. He is already serving multiple life sentences on other charges.

Aboul Fotouh’s Strong Egypt party’s deputy head, Mohamed al-Qassas, received a 10-year sentence, while the remaining defendants are sentenced to between 10 years and life in prison.

Lawyer Khaled Ali, a prominent opposition figure and ex-presidential candidate, last month submitted what he said is irrefutable evidence of Aboul Fotouh’s innocence.

Episodes of a TV series screened during the month of Ramadan – featuring real-life footage of Aboul Fotouh criticising the Brotherhood, filmed by state intelligence without his knowledge – are used in his defence.

Aboul Fotouh was among a number of candidates who unsuccessfully ran in elections in 2012, which saw the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi voted into power.

Morsi’s divisive rule lasted for only one year before he was ousted by then-defence minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass protests in July 2013.

The Brotherhood was subsequently declared a terrorist organisation, and thousands of its members and sympathisers were arrested in an ensuing crackdown.

Aboul Fotouh was arrested in 2018, after he joined a call to boycott the presidential election that year, in which Sisi was re-elected with a landslide 97% of votes.

Once a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the former candidate supported the mass protests against the Islamists, before going on to become a critic of Sisi and his ensuing clampdown on dissent.

He was sacked from the leadership in 2009, and has since denied any ongoing association with the group.

His assets have been frozen since he was arrested and added to the terror list for “leading a terrorist organisation”. – AFP, May 29, 2022.