Egypt remands Brotherhood leader’s daughter in custody

CAIRO (AA) - The Egyptian authorities on Thursday remanded the daughter of jailed Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat al-Shater -- along with five others -- in custody for an additional 15-day period.

“Aisha al-Shater… was remanded in custody for a further 15 days… after being accused of belonging to a banned terrorist group,” Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency reported.

According to MENA, another five individuals -- including lawyer Hoda Abdel-Moneim and the brother of a former supply minister -- were likewise remanded in custody on similar charges.

A defense lawyer who spoke to Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity said the six defendants were interrogated until dawn Thursday, after which they were all remanded in custody for 15 more days “pending further investigations”.

The defendants, for their part, have reportedly denied all charges against them.

It is the first time for the Egyptian authorities to acknowledge the arrest of the six individuals; the Brotherhood, for its part, had reported it in early November.

In mid-2013, Mohamed Morsi -- Egypt’s first freely elected president and a Brotherhood leader -- was ousted and imprisoned in a bloody military coup.

Afterwards, the Egyptian authorities outlawed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, waging a relentless crackdown on dissent in which hundreds of its political opponents were killed and thousands more thrown behind bars.