Candidates prosecuted for campaign violations

Egypt’s Supreme Commission for Presidential Elections (SPEC) has referred three presidential candidates to the public prosecutor for violating campaign rules,  the Al Arabiya news network reported on Thursday, as thousands of marchers flocked to the central Cairo neighbourhood of Abbasiya in solidarity with protesters who were attacked a day earlier. Former Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel Moniem Aboul Fotouh, his rival Mohammed Morsi – the Brotherhood candidate – and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa are being probed over actions violating the rule of the presidential campaigns. The commission said that the three candidates have organised campaigning conferences in the Assiut branch of al-Azhar University and the universities of Assiut and Mansura. Meanwhile, the former Islamist candidates, Khairat al-Shater and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, who were barred from the presidential race, were also referred to the public prosecutor, Al Arabiya reported citing SPEC. Shater, a Muslim Brotherhood member, will apparently be probed over "insulting the Commission"; while the Salafist Abu Ismail will be probed over forgery, as he had signed documents stating that his parents did not carry dual citizenship while his late mother was found to have carried US citizenship.