Egyptian military judges dropped convictions against Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Khairat el-Shater, clearing the nominee of the nation�s dominant political party to run in the election, the group�s lawyer said.
�We have taken administrative, legal and judicial measures before the military judiciary and based on this, all convictions have been dropped,� Abdel Monem Abdel Maqsoud said in a phone interview in Cairo yesterday. �All legal obstacles have been removed, and el-Shater now has the right to fully exercise all his political rights,� he said.
The Brotherhood said March 31 that el-Shater was its candidate for the presidential election that begins May 23 and May 24, making him one of the favorites to win and potentially increasing tensions between the once-banned group and the generals who currently rule the nation. He received 58 out of 110 votes at a meeting of the Brotherhood�s consultative council, according to Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera. The narrow majority suggested rifts within the organization.
Abdel Maqsoud said the needed legal steps were taken �over the last days.� El-Shater, 62, will submit his candidacy application this week, Abdel Maqsoud said. �The Brotherhood wouldn�t have named him if there were still obstacles.�
El-Shater spent years in and out of the jails of former President Hosni Mubarak. In the most recent conviction, he was sentenced in 2008 by a military court to seven years in prison amid a crackdown on the Brotherhood by the then government. He was released in March 2011, less than a month after Mubarak�s ouster, though the sentence wasn�t overturned then.
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