Incarcerated former ‘supreme guide’ of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammad Mahdi Akef, has died in hospital in Cairo Egypt. He was 89 and was diagnosed of cancer last year.
Akef was arrested after General Sisi’s coup to power in 2013 ousting President Mohamed Morsi.
Sisi launched crackdown against MB.
He was supreme guide, Murshid e Aam, of Brotherhood from 2004 to 2010.
“My Father is in God’s hands,” his daughter, Alia, wrote on her Facebook page on Friday.
Akef was sentenced to life imprisonment but the verdict was overturned and was facing a retrial.
Born on July 12, 1928, he joined the Brotherhood in 1940.
Akef was imprisoned from 1954 till 1974 after failed assassination attempt of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954 which led to a bloody crackdown on Brotherhood.
Among the many who faced persecution were Syed Qutb and its womens wing chief Zainab al Gazali. Qutb was executed in prison while Brotherhood founder Hasan Albanna was killed by gunmen.
For a large part of Hosni Mubarak’s 40 years in power, which ended when he was overthrown as Egypt’s president in the 2011 uprising, Akef was his main rival.
Writing on Twitter, the Palestinian group Hamas, which originated from the Muslim Brotherhood, described Akef’s death as “the nation’s loss and one of its most prominent figures”.
(Source Aljazeera)
