Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Egypt sentences 5 Islamists to jail terms – agency | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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CAIRO (Reuters) – An Egyptian court sentenced five Muslim Brotherhood members to up to five years in jail for money laundering and financing “a group banned by law,” state-news agency MENA said on Saturday.

The Supreme State Security Emergency Court sentenced four of the defendants, including a Saudi national, to five years each while a fifth received a three-year jail term, MENA reported.

“The court convicts all men for money laundering and financing a group prohibited by law,” MENA said. The court’s ruling is final and cannot be appealed.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is the country’s biggest opposition group with a wide grassroots base. It renounced violence decades ago and has been banned but tolerated by the government.

The group’s members can run in elections as independents but scores are periodically arrested in security sweeps, a state tactic they say is meant to curb their political clout.