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Egypt's Brotherhood faces possible wave of trials as authorities seek to link it to violence
• CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood faces a wave of trials unlike any it has seen in its history, threatening to put a large number of its senior leadership behind bars for years, even life, as military-backed authorities determined to cripple the group prepare prosecutions on charges including inciting violence and terrorism.
• The prosecutions are the next phase in the wide-scale crackdown on the Brotherhood following the military's July ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, who goes on trial next month.
• Morsi's trial, the most high-profile case, is setting the pattern for the others, aiming to show the Brotherhood leadership as directing a campaign of violence. Morsi is charged with inciting murder in connection to a protest during his year in office in which his supporters attacked protesters outside his palace.
• But leaders may also be charged with fomenting violence in post-coup protests by Morsi's Islamist supporters demanding his reinstatement. Security forces have cracked down heavily on the protests, claiming some participants were armed, and have killed hundreds of Morsi backers. With each new round of protests and violence, prosecutors consider new charges that include incitement and arming supporters, Brotherhood lawyers say.
• From nine to more than a dozen cases so far are being put together, each with multiple defendants, according to a prosecution official and Brotherhood lawyers. So far four cases, including Morsi's, have been referred to trial with a total of at least 34 defendants, though a few are being tried in absentia. Ahmed Seif, a human rights lawyer following the investigations, predicted around 200 Brotherhood leaders and senior officials could eventually end up in court.
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Away from the public eye, Obama quietly nurtures an evolving sense of spirituality
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is not an overtly religious man. He and his family rarely attend church, and he almost never elaborates in public about his own relationship to his Christian faith.
• But far away from the public eye, his longtime advisers say, the president has carefully nurtured a sense of spirituality that has served as a grounding mechanism (Continued on page 23)
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