CAIRO
A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party said Thursday that a party legal team would send notes to the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the latter rejected a case by the party against current authorities in Egypt.
"The party and its legal team will study the reasons for the court's rejection of the case and then present their notes in this regard," Mohamed Soudan, the head of the foreign relations committee in the party, told Anadolu Agency via phone from London.
The International Criminal Court on Thursday turned down a case by the Freedom and Justice Party, which was once headed by ousted president Mohamed Morsi, against Egypt's interim authorities.
The party accused the authorities of committing grave crimes, but the court said it has no jurisdiction on the case, because the people who filed it do not represent the Egyptian government, according to a court statement.
Soudan said the party filed the case in its capacity as the representative of a government that was ousted by the Egyptian army.
"The current government in Egypt has led a coup and committed serious crimes against the Egyptian people," Soudan said. "It can't file a request for its involvement in these crimes itself," he added.
Egypt's army moved in July last year to oust Morsi, the country's first freely elected leader, and remove his government following mass protests against the Islamist leader.
In the ten months since, the Egyptian authorities have launched an all-out crackdown on political dissent, putting thousands of opponents – including numerous leaders of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood – in jail.
Hundreds of Morsi backers were also killed and thousands injured on August 14 of last year, when security forces used overwhelming force to disperse two major pro-Morsi support camps in eastern Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza's Nahda Square.
By Hussein Qabani
englishnews@aa.com.tr
