by Lady Michelle-Jennifer Santos, and Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
Jan. 4, 2013 (TSR) – The Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of illegally receiving LE10 billion ($1.5 billion) from the United States government and Obama administration via Hillary Clinton. Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah ordered an immediate investigation into the charges on Thursday.
Lawyers Mohamed Ali Abd al-Wahab and Yasser Mohamed Sayab filed the complaint, in which they quoted Mitt Romney — the Republican candidate in the recent presidential election — as saying that the Obama administration had supported Egypt’s Brotherhood with US$1.5 billion.
The lawyers also claimed that the Brotherhood has armed militias that may be the so-called “third party” behind the violent chaos that has occurred during and after the revolution. The complaint quotes a former interior minister as saying that the Brotherhood and Hamas burned 28 police stations and stormed prisons during the 25 January revolution.
These armed militias are trained in the desert between Alexandria and Marsa Matrouh, the lawyers alleged.
The Brotherhood has not commented on the accusations.
Prosecutors to go on Strike
Meanwhile, prosecutors are planning a three-day strike next week in protest against Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah’s reversal of his earlier resignation.
The lawyers agreed on several resolutions during a meeting at the Judges Club Wednesday, including suspending work from 8-10 January and filing a complaint with the Supreme Judicial Council against Abdallah on accusations he interfered with investigations into presidential palace protest violence last month.
Abdallah, who was appointed by President Mohamed Morsy in November via a constitutional decree, initially said he would step down after hundreds of prosecutors demonstrated in front of his office to press for his resignation. Judicial officials say the president does not have the authority to remove their members from office, as Morsy did Abdallah’s predecessor, Mubarak-era appointee Abdel Meguid Mahmoud.
Lawyers and judges were also angered by allegations from investigators that Abdallah and the presidency had ordered the detention of dozens of protesters following clashes between pro- and anti-Morsy groups outside the palace last month despite a lack of evidence against them.
However, Abdallah has backtracked since announcing on 18 December that he would resign, saying shortly after that he had made the initial announcement under pressure from prosecutors and that capitulating to this pressure would set an unacceptable precedent.
Prosecutors said Wednesday they would press the Supreme Judicial Council to decide on the resignation that Abdallah previously submitted to the body and challenge the council’s decision to refer the matter to the justice minister. The attorneys said they would decide on additional collective action once the council has a chance to meet.
They also rejected the justice minister’s invitation for a meeting in his office and requested instead that he attend their meeting on 12 January.
Judges Club head Ahmed al-Zend told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky’s attendance at that meeting would help resolve the matter.
BRIEF CONTEXT WITH SYRIA and the Middle East Destabilization:
Muslim Brotherhood helping CIA funnel arms to anti-Assad rebels in Syria
New York Times, the propaganda arm of the United States, admittedly reports as of June 2012:
The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.
The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.
The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.
By helping to vet rebel groups, American intelligence operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing opposition network inside of Syria and to establish new ties. “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people,” said one Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by American counterparts.
The civilian opposition – the Syrian National Council – is about 70% Muslim Brotherhood, which is why a lot of secular-oriented Syrians have either refused to join, or resigned in disgust. There’s no need to wonder where these arms are going to end up; one way or another, the Brotherhood will probably control any post-Assad Syria and thus, any arms given to rebel forces will likely end up in their hands.
Dubai police chief likens Brotherhood to ‘Mafia’, Destabilizing the Region
Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan slammed the Muslim Brotherhood at a seminar in Dubai, comparing the group’s organizational structure to “the Mafia.”
At a seminar held in Dubai on November 2012, he claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood used to seize the money allocated to charity and are currently planning to control the treasuries of the states where they operate.
“What we hear about the Brotherhood reminds us of the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” he said, alleging that like the Mafia, the group has a small decision-making core that controls everything.
Former Brotherhood leader Sayyed al-Meligui also attended the seminar, organized by al-Misbar Center for Studies and Research, an organization that specializes in studying Islamic movements. “Hatred for the Brotherhood increased after they reached power in Egypt — their negative nature became obvious to everyone,” he said during the seminar.
Meligui, who was a member of the group for 40 years and became a member of its Shura Council, said, “Members of the group in Egypt do not exceed 200,000. The Egyptian opposition is much bigger than the group but they are disorganized.”
“The Brotherhood are acting as God’s chosen people and consider themselves to be better-thinking and are full of themselves,” he claimed, also alleging that the Brotherhood has a secret organization whose men are the most powerful in the group.
“The Brotherhood is ignorant about religion and politics, though it claims otherwise. The group refuses to uncover how much money it has and how it got it. Any of its members who attempts to find answers to those questions are expelled,” he said.
The UAE arrested 60 Emiratis who belong to the Brotherhood, which remains an outlawed group in the country, in July. They are still being questioned.
A local Emirati paper said the suspects said they belong to a secret organization with a military wing whose goal is to seize power and establish a religious government using illegal means.
An Emirati newspaper reported last Septmber that United Arab Emirates authorities arrested 60 local members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The authorities accused them of belonging to a clandestine group that includes a military wing that seeks to overthrow the regime in the UAE, the newspaper added. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in the UAE.
Al-Emarat Al-Youm newspaper, affiliated with Dubai Media Incorporated, which is headed by members of the Emirati royal family, said that the defendants confessed in detail to the accusations. It added they were arrested a few weeks ago.
“The defendants confessed that they found a suitable opportunity in the Arab Spring to carry out their activities,” Al-Emarat Al-Youm wrote. “[They also confessed they had] a military wing founded in 1988 to train members.
“The defendants said the leaders of the military wing had to contact retired officers to prompt them to join the organization,” the newspaper reported.
The paper quoted anonymous sources as saying that the defendants would be referred to trial when the investigation was completed.
The general prosecutor accused the detainees of creating and managing a secret organization that affects the security and the principles of the state, having links to foreign parties and receiving funds and instructions from them, offending the political leadership of the state, and building an investment portfolio to support an illegal organization.
The newspaper alleged that the detainees confessed to creating organizations similar to the Muslim Brotherhood in all Arab countries.
Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, where the group was founded in 1928, denounced the arrest. The detentions come a few months after Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan launched a sharp attack on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Saad Omara, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura Council in Egypt, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the arrest of Brotherhood members in the UAE was based on Khalfan’s personal stance toward the group. He said the UAE treatment of Muslim Brotherhood members was “unjustified and hostile.”
“The Brotherhood members do not use force,” said Egypt’s Brotherhood Secretary General Mahmoud Hussein, refusing to comment on Al-Emarat Al-Youm’s claims about the detainees’ alleged confessions.
According to Muslim Brotherhood reports, the group became active in the UAE in the 1960’s, specifically in 1968, after the return of a number of Emirati students who were studying in Egypt.
The students were influenced by the Brotherhood’s ideas and created a group when they returned home that focused on youth issues. This group evolved into the UAE Muslim Brotherhood.
