Al-Qaradawi resigns AL-AZHAR'S Supreme Clerical Committee announced on Monday that it had accepted the resignation of committee member Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi. Islamic scholar Al-Qaradawi, seen as a vocal supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood regarding the legitimacy of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, announced earlier last week that he had resigned from Al-Azhar's Supreme Clerical Committee, a key advisory body within the institution of Al-Azhar. He announced his resignation in a statement on his Facebook page, in defiance of what he considered bias in the committee regarding current political events. The clerical committee, an advisory body within the influential Islamic institution, released a statement this week saying that its members had voted to accept Al-Qaradawi's resignation. Al-Azhar's Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb did not vote. The voting came after Al-Tayeb's return to Egypt from a curative trip. “I present my resignation to the Egyptian people because they are the true owners of Al-Azhar, and not the sheikh of Al-Azhar,” Al-Qaradawi's statement said. The cleric, who is currently in Qatar, also described Al-Tayeb and other key leaders in the institution as supporters of “a military coup that raped the office of the Egyptian president”. Al-Qaradawi, whose membership Al-Azhar scholars demanded be revoked for insulting Al-Tayeb in July, criticised the high clerical committee for not speaking out against “recent massacres” in Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Nahda Square in addition to the “crimes” that have “terrorised” the Egyptian people. Brotherhood trial adjourned GIZA Criminal Court decided on Monday to postpone the trial of Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie who appeared in court for the first time since his arrest four months ago, and 14 leading group figures, to 11 February. The defendants are charged with inciting violence in Giza. Also charged in the case are Essam Al-Erian, Bassem Ouda, Mohamed Al-Beltagui and Safwat Hegazi. From the dock they chanted slogans against the regime — “Down with military rule” — preventing the prosecutor-general from reading the referral order. Amid tight security, the families of the defendants attended the session. The defendants kept interrupting the procedures, denouncing the charges against them as brought by authorities they do not recognise. Al-Beltagui asked the panel of judges to recluse themselves because “they are sitting in the wrong place” and trying the wrong people, he said. Badie told the judge that he was mistreated, and that he filed complaints about burning the headquarters of the Brotherhood and about the death of his son but that they were not investigated by the prosecution. The court allowed the lawyer to meet with the defendants for 10 minutes and then resumed the session. Giza prosecution had earlier ordered the arrest of the suspects pending investigations into violence that erupted in Giza Square and around Al-Istiqama Mosque in July, during which nine people were killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The suspects were accused of murder, supplying others with arms, endangering public security and intimidating citizens. A southern Cairo court on Tuesday did order the release of former Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mahdi Akef on charges of insulting the judiciary, postponing his trial to 11 February. The defendant, however, will remain in prison as he still faces other charges. Akef is accused of insulting the judiciary in statements in an April interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jaridain in which he described Egyptian judges as “corrupt”. The Brotherhood leader will face a separate trial for allegedly inciting the killing of protesters in front of the Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo's Muqattam during anti-Morsi protests on 30 June and during clashes in Manial. Al-Sisi out of Time MINISTER of Defence General Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi is no longer in the running for Time Magazine's Person of the Year, despite winning the reader's poll last week. The magazine's editors scheduled to reveal their selection on Wednesday 11 December. They said on Monday they had whittled the finalists down to eight. The final 10 contenders do not include Al-Sisi. Time's readers, in a poll completed last week, selected Al-Sisi as their Person of the Year. His runner-up was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Al-Sisi won almost 600,000 votes in the reader's poll, or 26.6 per cent of the total, ahead of Erdogan and American singer-actress Miley Cyrus. Time described Al-Sisi as “the Egyptian defence minister (and top army general) [who] spearheaded the controversial removal of democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi in July this year.” Erdogan came second with 20.6 per cent of the vote, while Cyrus came third with 16.3 per cent. The Time poll profiles the person that “most influenced the news this year for better or worse”. The finalists selected by the editors include Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Miley Cyrus, Pope Francis, US President Barack Obama, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, notorious whistle-blower Edward Snowden and gay rights activist Edith Windsor. Ironically, Morsi was a runner-up in last year's poll. The editors wrote then that “Egypt's new president won kudos abroad and curses at home. What he does next could determine the shape of the Middle East.” Jihadist leader killed A LEADING member of a Sinai-based Islamist militant group was killed on Monday by security forces. Spokesman for the Egyptian Armed Forces Ahmed Ali announced on his official Facebook page that the takfiri leader Ibrahim Abu Eita, known as Abu Suhaib of the Islamist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with security forces as he was riding his motorcycle. The statement added that another man with Abu Suhaib, Hamdan Salem, had been arrested and will be interrogated. Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, an Islamist militant group, claimed responsibility for several recent attacks targeting security personnel, most notably the death of high-ranking police officer Mohamed Mabrouk, who was shot dead on 17 November outside his home. Mabrouk had been involved with drafting charges against ousted president Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. He was in charge of the Brotherhood's file at the Interior Ministry's National Security Apparatus. The same group also claimed responsibility for September's failed assassination attempt on Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim in Cairo. Security forces have been responding with a crackdown on militants in the restive Sinai Peninsula, killing hundreds.
