The Shubra Al-Kheima Criminal Court postponed on Tuesday the trial of 48 defendants, including former Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie to 7 May. The defendants include prominent Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) leader Mohamed Al-Beltagy, conservative preacher Safwat Hegazy, and FJP member and former Minister of Youth Osama Yassin. They are being tried in connection with allegedly inciting violence and blocking the Cairo-Alexandria agricultural road in Qaliub in late July, 2012. Badie faces a slew of other charges in separate cases. He is among 638 who were sentenced to death by the Minya Criminal Court for allegedly killing two policemen and breaking into the Edwa Police Station on 14 August. State-run MENA reported that Badie made comments on Monday's verdict in court on Tuesday, saying that he is willing to die for the sake of God and that all of these verdicts are "void." Badie also stands trial alongside 50 other for purportedly "forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group to defy the government during the Rabaa sit-in dispersal, and to spread chaos in the country [by] breaking into police stations, government institutions, private property, and churches". These trials are part of a series of other trials that began against Brotherhood figures after the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi last July, who himself is in detention and faces four separate trials.
