A Cairo court on Monday sentenced to death by hanging eight members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, including the group's former supreme guide Mohammed Badie, court officials confirmed to The National.
Mr Badie was the eighth Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood and led the group between 2010 and 2013, when he was arrested during the military-led uprising against the Brotherhood-supported government that ushered in the current President, Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
Mr Badie's successor Mahmoud Ezzat, who became the Brotherhood's acting general guide in 2013 until his arrest in 2020, has also been sentenced to death.
The other men sentenced to death were members of the guidance bureau of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political party backed by the Muslim Brotherhood whose candidate Mohamed Morsi became Egypt’s president in 2012 after widespread protests led to the fall of the dictator Hosni Mubarak and democratic elections.
The others sentenced to death are FJP secretary-general Mohamed El Beltagy; Osama Yassin, a minister under Mr Morsi; the pro-Morsi preacher Safwat Hegazy,; the former MP Amr Zaki; and bureau members Essam Abdel Majed and Muhamad Abdel Maqsoud.
The men were charged in a high-profile court case after they organised a massive sit-in in Cairo's Rabaa Al Adaweya Square, in the district of Nasr City, in protest against the removal of Mr Morsi from power.
After six weeks of protest, the Egyptian military dispersed the protest. Hundreds were killed in the dispersal.
The eight men were sentenced on various charges of conspiring to topple the government of President El Sisi and of plotting to sow discord and “national disunity” by holding the sit-in, and sustaining it to prevent the country’s “authorities and its constitution" from governing, read the court ruling against the defendants.
The defendants will have the right to appeal the ruling.
The case has since 2013 been rebranded by Egyptian state media as the "Al Manasa case" as the sit-in was held a few hundred metres from the site of the same name where Egypt's former president Anwar Sadat was assassinated during a military parade in 1981.
The square where the sit-in was held has also since been renamed.
On Monday in the same case 37 other defendants were sentenced to life in prison, six were sentenced to 15 years of hard labour, and 21 were acquitted of all charges, officials confirmed.
State security agencies under Mr El Sisi, who came to power in 2013 after Mr Morsi was ousted, have implemented an intense crackdown on the Brotherhood.
Hundreds of people have been arrested since 2013 and rights groups have denounced the execution of prisoners.
Muslim Brotherhood figures have led a media campaign against Mr El Sisi's government from abroad.
For his part, Mr El Sisi has often publicly blamed the Brotherhood, and its foreign Islamist partners, for intentionally inciting disorder in Egypt in an attempt to topple his government and return to power in Egypt.
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Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
MATCH INFO
Fixture: Thailand v UAE, Tuesday, 4pm (UAE)
TV: Abu Dhabi Sports
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
Results
2pm: Maiden (TB) Dh60,000 (Dirt) 1,200m, Winner: Mouheeb, Tom Marquand (jockey), Nicholas Bachalard (trainer)
2.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh68,000 (D) 1,200m, Winner: Honourable Justice, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
3pm: Handicap (TB) Dh84,000 (D) 1,200m, Winner: Dahawi, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi
3.30pm: Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,200m, Winner: Dark Silver, Fernando Jara, Ahmad bin Harmash
4pm: Maiden (TB) Dh60,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Dark Of Night. Antonio Fresu, Al Muhairi.
4.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh68,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Habah, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
Ukraine
Capital: Kiev
Population: 44.13 million
Armed conflict in Donbass
Russia-backed fighters control territory
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: SimpliFi
Started: August 2021
Founder: Ali Sattar
Based: UAE
Industry: Finance, technology
Investors: 4DX, Rally Cap, Raed, Global Founders, Sukna and individuals
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Race%20card
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