Region

LONDON — Britain plans to reopen its embassy in Iran, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced Tuesday, as the West steps up its engagement with Tehran amid rapid jihadist advances in neighbouring Iraq.

Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group are moving towards the Iraqi capital Baghdad after a week-long offensive which has seen them make key gains including taking the second city of Mosul.

The British embassy in Tehran closed nearly three years ago after it was stormed by a mob angry at sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme.

“The circumstances are right to reopen our embassy in Tehran. There are a range of practical issues that we will need to resolve first,” Hague said in a written statement to parliament.

“However, it is our intention to reopen the embassy in Tehran with a small initial presence as soon as these practical arrangements have been made.”

The move came after historic foes Iran and the United States, which is considering drone strikes in Iraq, briefly discussed the crisis on the sidelines of nuclear talks in Vienna on Monday.

President Barack Obama is sending up to 275 military personnel to Iraq to protect US personnel and its embassy in Baghdad, while Washington has deployed an aircraft carrier to the Gulf.

Officials insist no combat troops will be sent back to the country. The last US fighting forces left Iraq in 2011 following the 2003 invasion.

Key player Iran

Hague’s statement to parliament’s lower House of Commons did not directly mention the situation in Iraq but noted that “Iran is an important country in a volatile region”.

He later told MPs in person that Iran had historically played a “divisive and sectarian” regional role but added: “We look to it to desist from that and we will use the expansion of bilateral relations to press for that.”

Diplomatic ties between Iran and Britain, the former colonial power, were strained long before the closure of the embassy in 2011.

There have been a string of major flare-ups in recent decades including over a fatwa issued against British author Salman Rushdie by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 and the seizure of 15 British sailors by an Iranian naval patrol in the northern Gulf in 2007.

Britain appointed a non-resident charge d’affaires to Iran in November, restoring direct diplomatic contacts severed in 2011.

Hague said he took the decision to move towards re-opening the embassy after a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday.

He added there had “never been any doubt in my mind that we should have an embassy in Tehran if circumstances allowed”.

Hassan Rouhani, the president of mainly Shiite Iran, last week said it may consider cooperating with the US to fight Sunni extremists in Iraq.

Rouhani took power last year amid hopes he would be more moderate and be more engaged with the West than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

SANAA — Yemeni forces have surrounded a sprawling mosque complex in the capital Sanaa amid suspicions that backers of ousted autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh might use it as a launchpad to attack the presidential palace.

The operation, in its fourth day on Tuesday, is the most dramatic standoff yet between current President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Saleh’s supporters since he was forced to step down in 2011 following mass protests after 33 years in power.

Gulf neighbours and the West fear for the stability of Yemen, which shares a long border with top oil exporter Saudi Arabia. Riyadh, along with Washington, helped push through the UN-mediated political transition.

Dozens of troops in armoured vehicles surrounded the mosque complex which straddles a major highway and is close to the presidential palace where Hadi conducts his day-to-day duties.

Security officials believe the mosque, whose six minarets tower over Sanaa, could be used as a base for insurgents.

“There is information that there’s a tunnel leading to the presidential compound from the mosque, and weapons inside the basement,” a Yemeni security source told Reuters.

State news agency Saba quoted a source in the presidential guard saying on Monday: “After the arrival of information about the intention by some subversive elements to use the mosque to attack sensitive facilities nearby, guarding has been enhanced to protect the mosque and the surrounding area.”

Abdulwali Al Qadi, the head of the mosque and a Saleh relative, denied that the building harboured any weapons.

“There’s no truth to these allegations,” he told Reuters. “There are no weapons in the basement, only books and Korans.”

“The presidency wants us to hand over the mosque. They have no right to ask for that,” he said.

Government troops denied media access inside the site.

Elected to lead the impoverished Arabian nation’s political transition in 2012, Hadi has sought to chip away at the influence of Saleh and other officials and generals from the old government who diplomats say are seeking to regain power.

The Gulf Cooperation Council, the league of Yemen’s energy-rich neighbours who encouraged the deal to oust Saleh, declared on Tuesday its “absolute support for all actions and decisions” taken by Hadi, according to a statement published on Saba.

The mosque was named in Saleh’s honour in 2008 and cost tens of millions of dollars to build. Despite upheaval in 2011, it has stayed in the hands of armed guards loyal to the ex-president.

Hadi reshuffled his Cabinet on Wednesday — appointing new oil, finance, electricity and foreign ministers — after street protests over deteriorating economic conditions.

A revolt by Shiite militants in the north, secessionist unrest in the south and Al Qaeda militancy across the country have sapped Yemen’s economy, as oil and water resources decline.

The government raided and shut down a pro-Saleh TV channel last week, accusing it of helping stoke unrest.

CAIRO — An Egyptian Cabinet led by Ibrahim Mahlab was sworn in Tuesday, with most positions from the previous military-installed government retained but the foreign minister replaced and an investment minister appointed.

The ministers took the oath of office before newly installed President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in an early morning ceremony broadcast live on state television.

Sisi, who led last year’s ouster by the army of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, had tasked Prime Minister Mahlab with forming a new Cabinet after his inauguration on June 8.

The new 34-member Cabinet has 13 new ministers including Sameh Shoukri, a former ambassador to Washington, as the foreign minister.

He replaces Nabil Fahmy, who leaves the role despite having made a high-profile visit to the United States in April.

“The president must have had a say in choosing the new foreign minister as usually he chooses ministers of interior, foreign, defence and justice,” said Mustapha Kamel Al Sayyid, political science professor at Cairo University.

The Cabinet retains Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, who has overseen a massive police crackdown on Morsi’s supporters that has left 1,400 people dead and seen more than 15,000 jailed.

General Sedki Sobhi, who is the army chief, also stays on as defence minister.

The post of investment minister has been created in an apparent attempt to bolster an economy roiled by turmoil since the 2011 popular uprising that forced out long-time autocratic president Hosni Mubarak.

It was filled by Ashraf Salman, a former prominent investment banker.

Sisi, who won nearly 97 per cent of the vote in last month’s presidential election, faces a tough task to restore stability to Egypt, and to revive its economy.

The International Monetary Fund said in April that growth in Egypt’s economy is expected to remain sluggish this year as uncertainty keeps tourists and foreign investors away.

The economy of the Arab world’s most populated country was forecast to grow by 2.7 per cent this year after expanding by 2.1 per cent in 2013, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel will seek to deal a crushing blow to Hamas’ West Bank infrastructure following the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, army radio reported on Monday.

Plans to move against the Islamist movement were discussed at a meeting of the security Cabinet convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at which ministers discussed punitive steps against Hamas which Israel has blamed for the kidnapping of three teenagers, media reports said.

Following the meeting, which lasted around 90 minutes, political sources said Israel would “attempt, in the coming hours and days, to try and overthrow Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank,” the radio’s political correspondent reported.

There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.

Israel is in the throes of a massive manhunt to find the three youths who disappeared on Thursday evening from a hitchhiking stop in the southern West Bank. 

So far, more than 150 Palestinians have been arrested, among them senior Hamas leaders and MPs as well as activists.

But opposition leader Isaac Herzog said the Palestinians had been helping efforts to find the missing teens, warning that any major move could escalate the situation in the already tense West Bank.

“It is clear now that the security coordination and Palestinian efforts to help locate the children are very important,” he told army radio.

“The war on terror will never end, it is vital. But in parallel, we must take all the necessary steps to calm the situation in the West Bank.”

Reports published earlier on Monday by Walla news website and Haaretz online said ministers would look into the possibility of banishing senior Hamas members to Gaza.

“One of the steps being considered is the possibility of expelling senior Hamas members from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip as well as destroying their homes,” Walla said, quoting unnamed senior sources.

A senior official quoted by Haaretz said the justice ministry had on Sunday looked into the legalities of expelling Hamas members to Gaza. The meeting was attended by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and other ministry officials, it said.

The discussion was to “explore whether such steps were in line with international law and would stand up to challenges in the high court,” Haaretz said, indicating that no decision had yet been taken.

As well as deportation to Gaza and demolishing the homes of senior Hamas members, Israel was also weighing sanctions against Hamas prisoners in Israel jails, it said.

KASAB, Syria — Residents of the Armenian Christian village of Kassab on Syria’s border with Turkey began returning home on Monday, dancing, cheering and waving flags in the main square a day after the army retook the area from rebels.

The fall of Kassab to President Bashar Assad’s forces less than three months after insurgents captured it dealt another symbolic and strategic blow to an opposition undermined in recent months by infighting and government gains.

Syrian state television has broadcast footage from the village, saying “security and stability” had been restored after the area was cleared of “terrorists”, the government’s standard term for the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.

A field commander in the Syrian army told Reuters the area including the border crossing had come under full control of government forces after they struck at rebel storehouses and supply routes and seized a tract overlooking the village.

“The terrorist groups in Kassab had two choices: Flee to Turkish territory, or die beneath the blows of the Syrian army,” he told Reuters during a government-organised visit to Kassab, declining to give his name.

A Reuters reporter saw dozens of residents returning, with some kicking up their heels in the village’s main square, raising Syrian flags and surveying damage inflicted on some of the village’s buildings, including churches.

“We came back today because we heard the army had liberated the village,” said Sausa Nadra, a Kassab resident who had fled to the coastal city of Latakia after the rebel advance.

“There’s damage, destruction, there are some upsetting things, but we’re happy we were able to come back after a short time. It didn’t take a long time like in other areas,” she said.

Handwritten slogans covered walls, although it was not clear who exactly had written them. “We want an Islamic state. God is greatest,” one of the slogans read.

Many of the rebels who seized Kassab in March were hardline Islamists including some from Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front.

In addition to its position on the Turkish border, the village was important for the insurgents because it is located in the heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, along the Mediterranean coast.

Lama Deeb, another resident of Kassab, praised the armed forces for regaining control of the village as soldiers and other security forces stood nearby.

“We thank God. May God protect our army and everyone who is holding a gun in defence of the country,” she said.

Over 160,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which began over three years ago as a peaceful protest movement but turned into a civil war after a government crackdown.

The war has taken on a starkly sectarian character, with the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels backed by Sunni Gulf Arab powers fighting to overthrow Assad, who is backed by Shiite Iran.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s election authority has proposed a parliamentary vote on October 26 and the first round of presidential polls a month later, marking the final step towards full democracy in the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Tunisia’s often turbulent political transition began after the popular revolt that ousted autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and inspired revolutions across the region.

The North African state has been run of late by a caretaker government that saw through the adoption of a new constitution lauded as a model of democratic evolution in an unstable region.

“Our proposal, which we will present to the Constituent Assembly, is to hold parliamentary elections on October 26, 2014, and the first session of the presidential vote on November 23, 2014, with the second session on December 28,” Chafik Sarsar, head of the country’s election commission, told Reuters on Monday.

It is widely expected that the Tunis parliament will in the coming days approve the dates after politicians patched up disputes over conditions for the election last week.

Setting a date for elections could restore investor confidence in the Tunisian economy, which has unravelled amid bouts of political turmoil and government mismanagement. The budget deficit is expected to touch 8 per cent by the end of 2014, more than 50 per cent higher than under Ben Ali.

Tunisia’s two major challenges are tackling bloated public spending, reviving the economy where unemployment now hovers at 15 per cent, and neutralising Islamist militants whose occasional attacks have disrupted steps towards democracy since 2011.

Islamists and secularists

The moderate Islamist Ennahda Party won the first post-Ben Ali election in 2011 but ran a messy government that came under fire for perceived mishandling of the economy and lenience towards radical Islamist groups.

The assassination last year of two secular opposition leaders by suspected Islamist militants swelled a popular backlash against Ennahda, forcing it to resign and cede place to a technocratic caretaker government.

However, Ennahda is expected to be one of the strongest election contenders in October, along with the main opposition secularist party Nida Tounes.

Nida Tounes will be open to a governing coalition with Ennahda if the next elections do not produce a clear majority, party chief and former prime minister Beji Caid Essebsi told Reuters in an interview in March.

Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi said Tunisia would have to be governed by consensus over the next five years to anchor its fragile democracy.

With its new constitution and caretaker administration in place until elections, Tunisia’s relatively smooth progress contrasts with years of bloody upheaval in Egypt, Libya and Yemen, which also ousted long-time autocratic leaders in 2011.

Egypt’s former army chief was elected president last month in a vote that froze out credible challengers, 10 months after the military toppled freely elected Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood following months of violent mass unrest.

In Tunisia’s presidential election, there will be fierce competition between several likely candidates — Essebsi, current President Moncef Marzouki, Republican Party chief Nejib Chebbi and “Tayar Al Mahaba” Party leader Hachmi Hamdi.

Ennahda has not revealed its presidential candidate so far.

Elections commission chief Sarsar said last month hat the new electoral law would assure a free and fair vote, with more than 1,000 international observers invited to monitor it.

The United States has no plans to consult Iran on any potential military action in Iraq, the Pentagon said Monday, but left the door open to diplomatic discussions on the crisis, Agence France-Presse reported.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said “there is absolutely no intention, no plan to coordinate military activities between the United States and Iran”.

US and Iranian diplomats might, however, address the situation in Iraq on the margins of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear programme, which will take place this week in Vienna, Kirby told reporters, according to AFP.

“It’s possible on the sideline of those discussions, there could be discussions surrounding the situation in Iraq,” he said.

“It’s not without precedent that we speak about security issues with Iran. There were discussions about Afghanistan with Iran in the not too distant past,” said Kirby, an apparent reference to talks with Tehran prior to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

But he added: “There are no plans to consult Iran about military activities inside Iraq.”

Kirby said the United States has encouraged Iran and other neighbouring countries to “play a constructive role” and respect Iraq’s “territorial sovereignty”.

The Pentagon’s comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry triggered speculation about potential US-Iran military cooperation in an interview with Yahoo News.

“I wouldn’t rule out anything that would be constructive,” Kerry said when asked if the United States would cooperate militarily with its traditional foe Iran.

Kerry said time would tell what Iran would be ready to do on behalf of its allies in the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

“Let’s see what Iran might or might not be willing to do before we start making any pronouncements,” Kerry said.

The lightning advance of extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) across Iraq, including the capture of Mosul, has alarmed both Tehran and Washington.

Both governments, for their own reasons, oppose the rise of the Sunni jihadists and have a common interest in seeing the Baghdad government fend off the onslaught.

ISIL’s offensive has raised fears of a new sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in the country from which US forces withdrew in December 2011.

Meanwhile, ISIL fighters and allied Sunni tribesmen overran yet another town on Monday, Saqlawiya, west of Baghdad, where they captured six Humvees and two tanks, adding to an arsenal of US-provided armour they have seized from the disintegrating army, Reuters reported.

Eyewitnesses said Iraqi army helicopters were hovering over the town to try to provide cover for retreating troops.

“It was a crazy battle and dozens were killed from both sides. It is impossible to reach the town and evacuate the bodies,” said a medical source at a hospital in the nearby city of Falluja, largely held by insurgents since early this year.

Overnight, the fighters captured the mainly ethnic Turkmen city of Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq after heavy fighting on Sunday, solidifying their grip on the north.

“Severe fighting took place, and many people were killed. Shiite families have fled to the west and Sunni families have fled to the east,” said a city official.

Tal Afar is a short drive west from Mosul, the north’s main city, which ISIL seized last week at the start of its push. Fighters then swept through towns and cities on the Tigris before halting about an hour’s drive north of Baghdad.

Iraq’s army is holding out in Samarra, a Tigris city that is home to a Shiite shrine. A convoy travelling to reinforce the troops there was ambushed late on Sunday by Sunni fighters near the town of Ishaqi. Fighting continued through Monday morning, according to Reuters.

An Iraqi army spokesman in Baghdad reported fighting also to the south of Baghdad. He said 56 of the enemy had been killed over the previous 24 hours in various engagements.

ISIL fighters’ sweep through the Tigris valley north of Baghdad included Saddam’s hometown Tikrit, where they captured and apparently massacred troops stationed at Speicher air base, once one of the main US troop headquarters.

A series of pictures distributed on a purported ISIL Twitter account appeared to show gunmen from the Islamist group shooting dozens of men, unarmed and lying prone. Captions said they were army deserters captured as they tried to flee fighting. They were shown being transported in the backs of trucks, led to an open field, laid down in rows and shot by several masked gunmen. In several pictures, the black ISIL flag can be seen.

“This is the fate of the Shiites which Nouri brought to fight the Sunnis,” a caption to one of the pictures reads.

ISIL said it executed 1,700 soldiers out of 2,500 it had captured in Tikrit. Although those numbers appear exaggerated, the total could still be in the hundreds. A former local official in Tikrit told Reuters ISIL had captured 450-500 troops at Speicher and another 100 elsewhere in Tikrit. Some 200 troops were still believed to be holding out in Speicher.

Washington has urged Maliki to reach out to Sunnis to create unity, but the prime minister has spoken more of retaliation than reconciliation. He was shown on television on Monday meeting military chiefs, vowing to crush the uprising and root out politicians and officers he blamed for betraying Mosul.

“We will work on purging Iraq of the traitors, politicians and those military men who were carrying out their orders,” he said. “Betrayal and treason have made us more determined and strong, and I swear a sea of men will march to put an end to this black page in Iraq’s history.”

Shiites, who form the majority in Iraq based mainly in the south, have rallied to defend the country, turning out in their thousands to join militia and the security forces after a mobilisation call by the top Shiite cleric, Ali Al Sistani.

A leading Sunni cleric, Rifa Al Rifaie, said Sistani’s call amounted to sectarianism. Sistani is known as a moderate who never called his followers to arms during the US occupation.

“Sistani, that lion, where was he when the Americans occupied Iraq?” Rifaie said. He gave a list of Sunni grievances: “We have been treated unjustly, we have been attacked, our blood had been shed and our women have been raped.”

ISIL emerged after Saddam’s fall, fought against the US occupation as Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch and broke away from Al Qaeda after joining the civil war in Syria. It says the movement founded by Osama Bin Laden is no longer radical enough.

Its cause has also been taken up by many other Sunni groups who share its view that Maliki’s government oppresses them.

SANAA — Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has removed heavy artillery from hills surrounding Sanaa over fears his predecessor, to whom some elements remain loyal, is plotting a coup, an official said Monday.

The move comes with the presidential guard, backed by armoured vehicles, surrounding a mosque controlled by ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the capital since late Saturday, an AFP correspondent reported.

Saleh ruled Yemen for 33 years before being forced out in February 2012 and replaced by his long-time deputy Hadi under a UN-and Gulf-sponsored deal.

“The military leadership has dismantled heavy artillery and rockets that were positioned on hills around Sanaa following information of a coup plot” by Saleh “whose loyalists continue to infiltrate the army”, the army official told AFP.

Heavy weapons have long been stationed on the hills around Sanaa to secure it as Yemen faces threats from an Al Qaeda insurgency, a northern rebellion and a southern separatist movement.

A source close to the presidency told AFP on Sunday that weapons had been stored in the large Al Saleh Mosque in the city and were being guarded by gunmen loyal to Saleh.

Hadi suspects his predecessor is plotting a coup, the source said, without elaborating.

A tunnel connecting the site to the presidential palace had also been discovered.

Hadi has ordered that the mosque and its surroundings be handed over to the presidential guard, according to sources close to the presidency.

The mosque siege came days after authorities closed the Yemen Today newspaper and television channel owned by Saleh.

Both media outlets have often been accused of biased coverage of the post-Saleh government and of inciting protests in Sanaa against power cuts and water and fuel shortages.

Critics accuse Saleh of impeding the deeply tribal country’s political transition.

Saleh still heads the influential General People’s Congress (GPC) Party which holds half of the government’s ministries. Hadi is the party’s secretary general.

Political sources in Sanaa told AFP that mediation efforts within the GPC, whose members are now divided between supporters of Hadi and Saleh, have so far failed.

ISTANBUL — The violence in Iraq is part of a broader Sunni Arab revolt that could lead to a holy war in the country, and is not just a rampage by Islamist militants from an Al Qaeda splinter group, fugitive Vice President Tarek Al Hashemi told Reuters on Monday.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have routed Baghdad’s army and seized the north of the country in the past week, threatening to dismember Iraq and unleash all-out sectarian war.

“What happened in my country ... is desperate people revolted. Simple as that. Arab Sunni communities over 11 years faced discrimination, injustice, corruption,” Hashemi said, rejecting the suggestion that militants from ISIL, also known as ISIS, alone were responsible.

“We do have about 11 to 12 armed groups, and they are being reactivated now. And we do also have political parties involved, we have ex-army officers, we have tribes, we have independent people in fact,” he said in an interview in Istanbul.

Hashemi, a Sunni sentenced to death in 2012 after an Iraqi court convicted him of running death squads while vice president, something he denies, has long accused Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki of a witch-hunt against his Sunni opponents.

“We have many groups beside ISIS. I am not going to deny that ISIS are existing, that ISIS are not influential. No, they are influential, very strong, could be a vanguard even in the whole operation in Mosul and other provinces, but they are not representing the whole spectrum of the groups,” Hashemi said.

He warned the situation could descend into a full-blown religious war and said Iraq’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, had fanned the flames when he called at Friday prayers for his followers to take up arms.

“If we leave things developing on the ground there will be a possibility for wide-scale sectarian warfare,” said Hashemi, who divides his time between the Gulf Arab state of Qatar and Turkey.

“The fatwa of Grand Ayatollah Sistani just put more fuel on the fire. There will be a reaction from the Arab Sunni communities and at the end of the day we are expecting a holy war between Muslim people, Shi’a and Sunnis,” he said.

“We have to stop that, we should try our best to stop the bloodshed. This is the responsibility of everybody and on top of them, the United Nations,” he said, calling for Maliki to resign and for the international community to intervene.

Like Hashemi, critics of Maliki say he has gained undue control over the army, police and security services, using them freely against Sunni Muslim and other political foes, while allowing grave abuses in prisons and detention centres.

Maliki has said in the past that his fight is with Al Qaeda, not with Sunni Muslims as a community. He lists an end to sectarianism and militias among his core principles.

Hashemi said Maliki’s leadership and the international community’s abandonment of Iraq had fuelled the extremists’ rise. The last US troops left Iraq in late 2011, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

“We are not generating ISIS, we are not generating Al Qaeda ... They just left things on the ground, and because of the injustice, they pushed our youngest sons to be more extreme,” Hashemi said.

“We kept warning the international community but everybody kept his eyes blind to what’s going on in Iraq. And all of a sudden, ‘why has this happened in Mosul, why this happened in Salahaddin?’ You should blame yourself,” he said.

CAIRO — Egypt's public prosecutor ordered the release on Monday on medical grounds of Al Jazeera journalist Abdullah Al Shamy, who had been on hunger strike for more than 130 days in protest over his detention, a statement from the prosecutor's office said.

Three other Al Jazeera journalists are on trial on charges of aiding ousted President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, which the state has declared a terrorist group as part of a fierce security crackdown after the army ousted Morsi last July.

A court said on Monday it would rule on June 23 in their case.

Shamy was one of 13 people freed on health grounds on Monday, all of whom were arrested when police dispersed Morsi supporters in northeast Cairo on August 14 last year, the most violent day in Egypt's recent history which left hundreds of people dead including dozens of police officers.

The other 12 were supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Their lawyers had appealed to the prosecution for their release on health grounds, saying they were all suffering from ailments, a prosecution source said.

Shamy and the Brotherhood supporters were charged with violence and killing police officers.