The Muslim Brotherhood vowed to take to the streets in protest of the trial verdicts handed down to former President Hosni Mubarak and his aides Saturday in relation to protester deaths and financial crimes.
Following the Cairo Criminal Court's decision, which sentenced Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly to life and acquitted Mubarak's sons, businessman Hussein Salem and six security officials, the group urged revolutionary forces to meet urgently to plan what actions they would take in response.
The Brotherhood said in a statement that the verdicts make Egyptians sense “a grave danger” that threatens the revolution, and do not provide retribution for revolution’s martyrs. The website of the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, questioned who had killed protesters if police leaders were declared innocent.
In response to head judge Ahmed Refaat's statements that the prosecution had presented insufficient evidence to convict the other defendants, the Brotherhood said the institutions that hid evidence or refused to submit it to the prosecution should be put to trial.
The consecutive rulings that exonerated top police directors charged with killing protesters sends a message that they may continue to kill citizens and remain protected by the regime, the statement said, claiming that only the head of Mubarak's regime is gone, but not the regime itself.
The Brotherhood also said it suspects that Egypt will be able to restore money smuggled out of the country by former officials.
The group's call for public mobilization came after a long divorce from street politics during and following elections last November, in which they earned more than 40 percent of seats in Parliament. FJP leadership of the legislature has been highly criticized and the group has failed to win favor with more secular revolutionary forces.
Mohamed Morsy, the Brotherhood presidential candidate set to run against Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, in the runoffs, demanded a retrial. On his Twitter account, he described the ruling as "farcical."
Some observers believe that Morsy will link the public mobilization against the trial verdicts to his presidential bid.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
