Muslim Brotherhood leading figure Mohamed El-Beltagy was sentenced to six years in jail for contempt of court Saturday during a session of the prison break trial that also involves Egypt's former president Mohamed Mursi.Beltagy called on North Cairo Criminal Court to thoroughly register as evidence apparent leaks that emerged recently of top security officials acknowledging, in recorded phone conversations, that Mursi was illegally detained in a military facility following his ouster.
As the court insisted on taking into account only parts of the recordings, which the prosecutor general has already declared unauthentic, Beltagy told the jury that “this is not fair,” Ahram Online's reporter in court said.
Beltagy was escorted out of the courtroom and received the jail sentence and a LE20,000 fine.
The defence team of Mursi and other defendants are calling for all charges to be dropped against them on the grounds that Mursi was illegally detained after his ouster, as claimed in the leaks.
The court adjourned to 10 January the trial, in which Mursi and 130 supporters of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood are accused of escaping Wady Al-Natron Prison during the early days of the 2011 18-day uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
