Rights groups to attend Brotherhood trial-Brotherhood

CAIRO, July 14 (Reuters) An International rights delegation will attend the upcoming session of the military trial of 40 Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt, a Brotherhood lawyer said today.

Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud said a group from London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International would attend tomorrow's session, along with former Queen's Counsel Sir Ivan Lawrence and former US attoney general Ramsey Clark.

The 40 defendants, include third-in-command Khairat el-Shatir, have all been charged with money laundering and terrorism, charges they deny.

Military trials in Egypt are usually held behind closed doors, and attendance requires a special permit from the court.

In June, Egyptian security forces barred members of four human rights groups from attending the trial.

The government refuses to let the Brotherhood, which renounced violence in the 1960s, form a political party and calls it an illegal organisation.

Brotherhood members are vulnerable to detention and questioning at any time because the authorities consider membership, or any kind of political organising or fundraising for the group, to be against the law.

Muslim Brotherhood members, standing as independents to get around a longstanding ban on the group, won 88 of the 454 seats in parliament in 2005, confirming their status as the main opposition force in the Arab world' most populous country.

Political analysts have said the trial represents the escalation of a government crackdown on the non-violent Islamist group to prevent it making further electoral gains that might present a serious threat to the rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

Just over two weeks ago, Egyptian police detained around 45 students from the Brotherhood who had been holidaying in the coastal city of Alexandria, accusing them of holding meetings and possessing Brotherhood literature.

Reuters CS VV1919