Agencies/Cairo
An Egyptian court sentenced a hardline Islamist former presidential hopeful to one year in prison yesterday for insulting the court, state news agency Mena reported.
Salafist preacher Hazem Salah Abu Ismail is on trial for fraud in a case related to presidential elections in 2012 which brought the now ousted president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood to power.
Abu Ismail, who has links to the Brotherhood, was disqualified from that election after reports that his late mother had held a US passport. Under Egypt’s election rules, both a candidate’s parents must hold only Egyptian citizenship.
During his short-lived presidential campaign, he built a passionate base of followers among Salafists who broadly opposed Mursi’s ousting a year later.
Abu Ismail interrupted his court-appointed attorney during yesterday’s session and told the judge, “I don’t feel like I am before a court,” a judicial source said.
He was sentenced to a year in prison in January after making a similar statement.
A ruling on the fraud charge is expected next week.
Mursi and hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been put on trial in recent months by the army-backed government on a wide range of charges.
A crude bomb exploded yesterday near a newly built hospital just minutes before it was inaugurated by Egypt’s health minister, security officials said, adding that there were no casualties.
The device went off in the city of Kaft, 630km south of Cairo, before Adel al-Adawi arrived for the opening, the officials and state television reported.
The ceremony went ahead as planned.
A wave of bombings and shootings has targeted Egypt’s security forces since the army ousted Mursi last July.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim escaped unhurt when a car bombing targeted his convoy last September in Cairo.
The military-installed authorities say militants have killed about 500 people since the overthrow of Mursi.
Most militant attacks have been in the restive Sinai Peninsula, but in recent months brazen attacks have also been launched farther afield in the Nile Delta and in the capital.
l Egypt’s minister of electricity and renewable energy said that the government will not be able to prevent power cuts this summer, an acknowledgment of the severe energy crunch facing the country.
“Eliminating blackouts and reducing loads this summer is impossible,” Mohamed Shaker said in comments published yesterday in the state-run Al Ahram newspaper.
Summer blackouts have hit Egypt in the past few years as successive governments have failed to develop a sound strategy to tap major natural gas reserves even as a rapidly growing population boosted demand for the fuel.
But power cuts have come early this year, ahead of peak electricity use in the summer when many households crank up their air-conditioning units - a sign of the most severe energy crunch in years.
Shaker acknowledged that the problem would take “a few years” to resolve.
Political turmoil since a popular uprising ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 has paralysed decision making. Disarray in the energy sector will pose a major challenge for the new government after next month’s presidential election.
Failure to find a solution to the current energy crisis could frustrate Egyptians, who rioted in the past over long lines at gas pumps just before the army ousted Mursi following mass protests against his rule.