Four "disappeared" Egypt Islamists held in prison

CAIRO, Aug 30 (Reuters) Four Muslim Brotherhood members have been brought before Egyptian prosecutors, ending weeks of uncertainty over their fate, their lawyer said today.

Families of the four Alexandria men had not been able to obtain information about their whereabouts since they were picked up by police in July. An Interior Ministry spokesman had said at the time that he had no information about them.

Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud told Reuters the men were questioned by prosecutors on Tuesday and charged with membership of a terrorist group, which the men deny. He said they were in Tora prison south of Cairo.

Egyptian police regularly hold members of the Islamist movement without charge for months at a time, but it is rare for the government not to acknowledge who it is holding and where.

Abdel Maqsoud said the men were being questioned along with a number of non-Egyptian Arab nationals detained in June and accused of having contacts with al Qaeda.

He said he believed one of the Brotherhood members, Mohamed Assem Mohamed, was related to a Libyan who was among the foreign nationals detained, and that police may have rounded up Mohamed and three Brotherhood students based on that connection.

Abdel Maqsoud, who planned to fight the men's detention, said the men had acknowledged being members of the Brotherhood.

''But they had nothing at all to do with this mess ... and the people questioning them know this, they're certain of this.'' Egyptian authorities are holding several hundred members of the Brotherhood, mostly without charge, as part of a crackdown that started late last year.

The government calls the Brotherhood an illegal organisation but its members hold 88 seats in parliament and the group, which seeks an Islamic state through democratic elections, can operate with some limited freedom.

REUTERS PD VV1549