Monday September 02, 2013
Kaieteur News
Egypt’s Mursi to be tried for inciting violence CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s top prosecutor referred yesterday ousted Islamist President Mohammed Mursi to trial on charges of inciting the killing of opponents protesting outside his palace while he was in office, the state news agency said. The military ousted Mursi on July 3 after millions took to the street demanding he step down. He’s been held incommunicado since. Despite other accusations by prosecutors, yesterday’s decision is his first referral to trial. No date was announced for the trial. Mursi will be tried, along with 14 members of his Muslim Brotherhood, in a criminal court for allegedly committing acts of violence, and inciting the killing of at least 10 people. The case dates back to one of the deadliest bouts of violence during Mursi’s one year in office. At least 100,000 protesters gathered outside his presidential palace on Dec. 4, protesting a decree he issued to protect his decisions from judicial oversight and a highly disputed draft constitution that was hurriedly adopted in the Islamist-dominated parliament. Protesters demanded he call off a referendum scheduled days later. The next day, Islamist groups and supporters of Mursi attacked protesters who camped out there, sparking deadly street battles that left at least 10 dead and sending chills among Mursi’ opponents that he had relied on organized mobs to defend his palace. The state news agency said an investigation by prosecutors revealed that Mursi had asked the Republican Guard and the minister in charge of police to break up the sit-in, but they feared a bloody
Mohammed Mursi confrontation and declined. The agency said Morsi’ aides then summoned their supporters to forcefully break up the sit-in. Officials from the Brotherhood and its political party deny using violence to quell critics and said supporters were defending the palace. They accused opponents of starting the battles and forcing away police that had been guarding the area. Those referred to trial with Mursi include the deputy leader of the Brotherhood’s political party, Essam el-Erian, currently in hiding. They also include leading Brotherhood member Mohammed elBeltagy, arrested this week, as well as leading proBrotherhood youth leaders who were video-taped during the street clashes on the front lines. Since Mursi’ ouster, authorities have waged an intensive security crackdown on members of his group. The crackdown followed a violent breakup of a sit-in held by Mursi supporters for weeks demanding his reinstatement that left hundreds killed.
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South Africa’s Mandela back home after long hospital stay JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Anti-apartheid leader and former South African President Nelson Mandela returned to his home yesterday where he will continue to receive intensive care after three months in hospital with a lung ailment. Mandela, 95, had spent 87 days in a Pretoria hospital after he was rushed there in early June suffering from a recurring infection of the lungs, a legacy of the nearly three decades he spent in jail under apartheid. “Madiba’s condition remains critical and is at times unstable. Nevertheless, his team of doctors are convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in Pretoria,” South Africa’s presidency said in a statement. It referred to Mandela by the traditional clan name by which he is affectionately known. The Nobel Peace Prize l a u r e a t e ’s latest hospitalization in June had attracted a wave of attention and sympathy at home and across the world. His home in Johannesburg’s Houghton suburb had been “reconfigured” to allow him to receive special care there, the presidency added. Police blocked off a section of the street in the upscale neighborhood, where a crowd of reporters and camera crews had gathered. “The health care personnel providing care at his home are the very same
who provided care to him in hospital. If there are health conditions that warrant another admission to hospital in future, this will be done,” the presidency added. “It is a day of celebration for us, that he is finally back home with us,” Mandela’s grandson and heir Mandla said in a statement, acknowledging that he was “not a young man anymore”. Mandla said his grandfather ’s discharge from hospital disproved claims that Mandela was in a “vegetative” state “waiting for his (life) support machines to be switched off, in effect declaring him dead”. Thousands of wellwishers had visited the Pretoria medical facility during his stay there to leave flowers, cards and gifts. Mandela made his last public appearance waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the Soccer Wo r l d C u p f i n a l i n Johannesburg in 2010. In April state broadcaster aired a clip of the thin and frail statesman being visited by President Jacob Zuma and top officials from the African National Congress. The ruling party said he was “in good shape” but the footage showed a weak old man sitting expressionless in an armchair. “He is out of hospital, that alone is good news for us. We don’t want to be thinking negative. We just want to remain optimistic. He is alive and kicking and a part of us, that’s good enough,”
Nelson Mandela Motemi Tinashe said outside the Mandela Family House Museum in Soweto, south of Johannesburg, where he lived before his imprisonment. For more than a decade Mandela has been out of politics, dividing his time in retirement between his home in Houghton and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born. His admission to hospital four times in six months has reminded the nation of the mortality of the father of the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation” and the morals he stood for. “I often wonder how much Mr Mandela knows about what is going on in South Africa and the state of politics. The ANC is a
disappointment and I pray he doesn’t know that,” said Thomas Mkhize, a Johannesburg taxi driver. “The current leaders care more about themselves and their pockets than the people,” he said. Many analysts and critics accuse the century-old ANC of having lost its moral compass. The anti-apartheid leader was elected South Africa’s first black president in multiracial elections in 1994 that ended white minority rule. Mandela’s imprisonment included 18 years on the notorious Robben Island penal colony, when he and other prisoners were forced to work in a limestone quarry and he first suffered the lung infections that were to dog him for years. The presidency requested that Mandela and his family be given “the necessary private space so that his continuing care can proceed with dignity and without unnecessary intrusion.”