Egypt seizes assets of Morsi, 88 Muslim brotherhood members

Cairo (AFP) – An Egyptian court on Sunday ordered the seizure of assets of former president Mohamed Morsi and 88 other members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, a judicial source said.

“The Court for Urgent Matters… ordered the seizure of the assets of 89 leaders and members of the Brotherhood, and their transfer to the treasury,” the source told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

Islamist Morsi died in June 2019 while on trial, after six years in prison. The seizure applies to assets inherited by his family.

The move also targets the Brotherhood’s supreme guide Mohamed Badie, his deputy Khairat al-Shater, and former legislator Mohamed Beltagy, all imprisoned.

The source did not specify the value of the assets.

The seizure is one of several initiated by a commission charged with implementing a 2018 law on the “organization and management of the assets of terrorists and terrorist groups”.

Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was ousted by the army after a year in power, on the back of mass protests against his presidency in 2013.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a retired general who led the military at the time of Morsi’s removal, has since overseen a crackdown on dissent.

Egypt has jailed thousands of members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood — blacklisted as a “terrorist” organization in 2013 — and executed dozens, while others have fled the country.