Brotherhood-linked supermarkets targeted in raids

The Egyptian government has seized a supermarket chain belonging to a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, which is suspected to be part of a wider grab of Brotherhood assets.

The Seoudi supermarkets chain, owned by Brotherhood-affiliated Abdelrahman Al-Seoudi, was raided by police on Sunday, shortly after a decision by a government committee to assess Brotherhood funds and confiscate the properties.

The Zad supermarket chain, owned by Brotherhood deputy leader Khairat El-Shater, has also been targeted in raids.

"Security forces are implementing the law," Cairo's police chief, Brigadier General Ali al-Demerdash, said in relation to the moves.

"A committee formed in accordance with a court ruling decided to seize Zad, which is owned by Khairat al-Shater, and Seoudi, which is owned by Abdel Rahman Seoudi, because the two leaders are financing the Muslim Brotherhood," he told reporters.

An official Seoudi source said that the move would not result in closure or confiscation of companies that are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Daily News Egypt.

He said that members of the group involved in business “learned their lesson in the 1980s following the confiscation of the group’s funds after their success in parliamentary elections”.

“The government at that time decided to confiscate the Brotherhood’s funds so as not to allow them to spend money on their election campaign,” the Seoudi official said. “Since then, the businessmen learned their lesson and decided to remove themselves from their economic activities, so their positions became ceremonial ones, and this way the decision to confiscate would not impact them.”

Dozens of masked policemen were seen stopping customers from entering a Seoudi outlet in central Cairo on Sunday.

"They came and ordered us [employees] all out... yes, the chain is owned by a Muslim Brotherhood member, but we sell food and beverages, not politics," said a manager of the store.

Demerdash said the two retail outlets would be handed over to the government once all legal formalities were completed.

A court in September banned the Muslim Brotherhood from operating and ordered its assets seized. It also prohibited any institution branching out from or belonging to the Islamist movement.