Military trial for 61 Brotherhood loyalists over terrorism

The Egyptian prosecution on Saturday referred 61 affiliates of the currently-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to military trial over terrorist activities and plots, state-run MENA news agency reported.

The defendants are accused of carrying out and plotting terror acts in response to the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, after mass protests against his one-year rule, and the following security dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins, which left about 1,000 people dead while thousands of others were arrested.

"The defendants belong to a militant cell formed to be the military wing of the terrorist (Brotherhood) group," MENA quoted a prosecution's statement as saying, adding that the cell's main purpose was to target judges and police and military men and facilities.

The statement said the defendants, from Damietta and Minufiya provinces, confessed belonging to Morsi's Brotherhood group and that they took part in several anti-government attacks besides murder of a policeman and attempted murder of a police employee.

"The confessions included that the defendants were planning to murder policemen in case the court verdicts against Brotherhood leaders are carried out," the statement continued.

Egypt has recently executed six members of a Sinai-based militant group as a military court convicted them of carrying out attacks on soldiers near Cairo last year, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which has changed its name to "Sinai State" as an affiliate of the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group, has killed hundreds of security men since Morsi's overthrow in mid-2013.

Egypt's newest constitution, drafted and approved after Morsi's removal, allows military trial for civilians in crimes related to assaulting military institutions or those relevant to them.

The country is currently holding mass trials for thousands of Brotherhood members and affiliates over charges varying from murder to belonging to the "terrorist" Brotherhood group.

Morsi, along with more than 100 others, was recently handed a death sentence by a criminal court, and his case has been referred to the Mufti for his non-binding Islamic legal opinion on execution over their role in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising that toppled ex-leader Hosni Mubarak.