Egypt's government battles with the Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt's higher military court has handed out stiff sentences against 25 people associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, including the banned group's third-in-command, Khayrat Shater, in a case that focused on the organisation's sources of financing. The verdict came at a time of increasing tension between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood, both on the domestic front, amid popular protests at food inflation and bread shortages, and in relation to Egypt's embroilment in Gaza. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the effectively besieged territory, has strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The sentences, ranging between three and ten years in jail, were the harshest to be delivered by the military court since it assumed responsibility for cases involving the Muslim Brotherhood in 1995. Abdel-Moneim Abu Maqsoud, the chief defence lawyer, described the sentences as excessive, and said that he would lodge an appeal (a right that has only recently been vouchsafed, although the appeal must also be heard by a military court). Mohammed Habib, the deputy leader of the Brotherhood, described the sentences as blatantly politicised; part of the ongoing campaign to marginalise the group, which won 88 seats in parliament at the end of 2005, but was, in effect, blocked from taking part in last year's upper house elections and in the local elections earlier this month.

Money trail

The case originated in a paramilitary parade held in the Al-Azhar, an Islamic university in Cairo, in December 2006. A police investigation found evidence pointing to the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood in organising the parade and in financing the purchase of the uniforms worn by students that took part. The military prosecutor charged 40 people with a range of offences, including membership of a banned organisation and operating an illegal financing operation, based on channelling funds transferred from international supporters of the Brotherhood through local companies.

The toughest sentences, of ten years in jail, were passed in absentia against five prominent Islamist figures based in Europe and the Gulf: they included Youssef al-Nada and Ali Ghaleb Himmat, the co-founders of Bank al-Taqwa, an Islamic institution based in Switzerland, and Ibrahim al-Zayat, the head of the Islamic society of Germany (a post that he took over from Mr Himmat in 2002). Bank a-Taqwa and its senior directors were designated by the US Treasury in November 2001 for financing terrorism. The bank's board of directors has consistently denied any involvement in any such activity.

Of those who were present at the trial, the stiffest sentences, of seven years in jail, were passed against Khairat al-Shater, said to be in charge of the Brotherhood's financial affairs, and Hassan Malek, a local businessman with interests in textiles, clothing and trading. The court ordered that the assets under the control of Mr Shater and Mr Malek be impounded on the grounds that they were being used to finance the activities of a banned organisation. Al-Ahram, a state-owned newspaper, commented that the asset seizure was likely to have a serious impact on the Brotherhood's operations. Fifteen of those charged were acquitted.

Hamas dimension

On the day before the trial concluded, Al-Ahram ran an "exclusive" story on its front page citing unnamed Palestinian sources as saying that Hamas was seeking Muslim Brotherhood support in the event of a military confrontation between the Palestinian group and Egyptian troops deployed along the southern border of the Gaza Strip. The article claimed that Hamas forces, described as "militias", were mobilising for a major assault on the Egyptian positions as part of a bid for control over border crossings, and that the Muslim Brotherhood was preparing for mass demonstrations as a means to constrain the Egyptian authorities' response to any such attack. The state-run media have also given prominent coverage to a fatwa alleged to have been pronounced by a Palestinian cleric in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis declaring that it would be permissible for Hamas fighters to kill Egyptian soldiers.

Alongside such attempts to discredit Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood before Egyptian public opinion, the government is also seeking to highlight the role that Egypt is playing in providing humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Palestinians and in persuading Israel to ease its choking restrictions on the territory. Egypt has also indicated that it is persisting in its efforts to mediate a "pause in hostilities" (tahdiya) between Hamas and Israel.