Brotherhood Imam questioned over statements against SCAF and Israelis
Zeinab El Gundy, Wednesday 18 Jan 2012
A police officer has reported Sheikh Salah Sultan for insulting the ruling military council and calling on people to kill Israelis in Egypt


Cairo prosecutors have summoned Sheikh Salah Sultan, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), for investigation after he was accused of insulting the Supreme Council for Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Egyptian army on Tuesday.

According to news reports, police officer Ahmed El-Assar has filed a report against Sheikh Sultan accusing him of insulting the SCAF, as well as calling for the deaths of Israelis in Egypt.

Sultan lives between Egypt and the UnitedStates, where he heads the American Center for Islamic Research.

Sultan criticised the SCAF in a speech last August after four Egyptian military officers and soldiers were killed by Israeli fire on the Egyptian-Israeli borders.

Sultan insists that he did not insult the SCAF in his speech, saying that he only criticised the decisions of the military council regarding the incident.

“I only said that that after refusing to expel the Israeli ambassador following the incident at the borders, the army should stick to protecting the borders and leave power,” Sultan told the media on Tuesday.

Sultan’s August speech, which he gave during a conference held in Cairo in solidarity with Jerusalem, caused controversy when the Sheikh announced, following the murder of the Egyptian officers, that Egyptian clerics may re-issue a fatwa issued in 1994 that called for the death of Israeli citizens in Egypt.

The fatwa was issued after a notorious massacre at Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied territories, and gave Muslims the rightto kill any Zionist who entered Egypt, whether a tourist or not.

The controversial Sheikh has also accused Zionists in the United States of setting fire to his house in Ohio and attempting to kill his son, who was injured during the fire and had to be transferred to the hospital last Monday.

Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud, Sheikh Sultan’s lawyer, told Ikhwan Online that the Cairo prosecution decided to delay its interrogation of Sheikh Sultan to allow him to travel urgently to the US.

Abdel Maksoud added that the accusations Sultan faces are actually a return to the old repressive State Security Intelligence’s policies.

Sultan has been widely criticised in the States for his position on Israel, Zionism and pro-Israeli American foreign policy.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/31985.aspx