Various media are reporting that Egyptian security forces have seized two supermarket chains owned by leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. According to a report in the Lebanese Daily Star:
Khairat Al-Shater
CAIRO: Egyptian security forces have seized supermarket chains owned by two leading figures of the Muslim Brotherhood as part of the government’s crackdown against the banned organization, judicial and security sources told Reuters Sunday.
On the orders of a committee charged with identifying Brotherhood assets, the security forces have seized the Zad chain of supermarkets owned by Khairat al-Shater, as well as the Seoudi chain of Abdulrahman el-Seoudi, the sources said.
“We received an order from the committee to seize the chains, Zad and Seoudi, and we just went and took them,” a security source said.
“We are currently going through the funds and goods and equipment and the reason for that is that they belong to Brotherhood leaders whose assets have been ordered to be seized,” the source added.
The committee and supermarket chains could not immediately be reached for comment.
The committee’s secretary, Wadee Hanna, was quoted in the Alahram newspaper as saying it was making an inventory of shops belonging to the Brotherhood and seizing them via the security forces.
In July 2013, the GMBDW reported on a Financial Times article that looked at the crackdown by Egypt’s current military rulers on the business interests of Muslim Brotherhood leaders. According to the article, among the top targets of the effort was Khairat El-Shater, a former presidential candidate and architect of the Brotherhood’s political strategy:
In April 2012, Ahram Online posted an article titled “Muslims Inc: How rich is Khairat El-Shater?” which examined the finances of Mr. El-Shater.
The Hudson Institute has translated of a lecture given by Mr. El-Shater on April 21, 2011 and titled is “Features of Nahda: Gains of the Revolution and the Horizons for Developing.” The preface to the translation correctly characterizes the lecture as “perhaps the single most important elaboration to date of not only Al-Shater’s worldview and politics, but of the MB’s plan for the future of Egypt and the region more generally in the post-Mubarak era.”
