CAIRO: Seven leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were sentenced to death by hanging today [Aug 21] for conspiring to assassinate President Nasser and top UAR leaders.

The seven are: Sayed Kotb, leader of the organisation, Ali Ashmawi, head of secret cell of trained assassins, Mohammad Nawash, head of secret cell in Cairo, Abdel Fattah Ismail, head of the Alexandria branch, Ahmed Abdel Samie, head of the branch in the Nile delta region, Sabri Ezzat and Magdi Metwalli, both engineers in charge of blowing up bridges and Government buildings.

Kotb’s sister, 40-year-old Hamida, was sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour. Another woman, 45-year-old Zienab El-Ghazzali, was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour for financing the plot to kill President Nasser.

Twenty-two others received life jail sentences.

[Meanwhile, as reported by our Correspondent from Rawalpindi,] the Foreign Minister, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, [indicted] India for “blatant acts of suppression and oppression” against the people of Jammu and Kashmir. “These acts,” he said, “shall not deter them (the people of Jammu and Kashmir) from continuing their struggle for self-determination.”

In ... a statement issued today the Foreign Minister strongly condemned the Indian moves to deprive Kashmiris of their property by allowing militant non-Kashmiri Hindus to own property in Kashmir. The “whole world is aware about the status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir”.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2016