Muslim Brotherhood Shura Council fails to resolve money embezzlement scandal

Ashmaa Al-Batakoushi

Muslim Brotherhood members in Turkey have been recently exchanging accusations of corruption; as a group of young Muslim Brotherhood members have used Twitter and Facebook accounts to accuse Brotherhood leaders living in Turkey of embezzling millions of dollars.

Four members of the Brotherhood’s Shura Council are said to have lined their own pockets with millions of dollars from Qatar and other donors at a time when the group’s rank and file are struggling to make ends meet in Turkey.

Amir Bassam, another member of the group’s Shura Council, has said in a leaked voice recording that corruption and embezzlement were endemic among the group’s leaders.

“We can’t allow this to continue, not at a time when some of the group’s members are facing starvation on the streets of Istanbul,” said Bassam.

In the leaked voice recording, Bassam accused Mahmoud Hussein, the secretary general of the brotherhood, Mohamed Al-Beheiri and Ibrahim Mounir of involvement in a number of financial violations.

Essam Talima, a preacher, said on a Brotherhood TV channel broadcast from Turkey that Hussein, Mounir and Al-Beheiri have embezzled large sums to buy real estate in Turkey and set up bank accounts in the names of family members.

Purchased properties and cars in Turkey were registered with the names of a group of leaders – Mahmoud Hussein, Ibrahim Mounir, Mohamed al-Beheiri and Mahmoud el-Abiari. With the discovery of the situation, two of them surrendered the property by means of “customary paper” which is not recognized in Turkey, while Abiari refused.

At the start of the 1930’s the Muslim Brotherhood had emerged from an ideology espoused by a small group of individuals under the leadership of Hassan al-Banna. By 1933, al-Banna recognised that for the Muslim Brotherhood to sustain its momentum, it required a tighter organisational structure, with an emphasis on cohesion and cooperation between districts and local branches, therefore he founded the brotherhood’s Shura Council that held its first meeting within the same year. Members of the Shura Council are being picked based on confidence and loyalty, not competency.

The Shura Council kept on holding meetings until Banna’s brother-in-law, Abdul-Hakim, was accused of a number of sexual harassments, which caused dissents within the group, the matter which halted Shura Council meetings.

In the 1950s and 1960s, most members of the group were sentenced to prison by Egyptian law. The Guidance Office sought at the time to revive the role of the group’s Shura Council and managed to hold its first session after a while.

In a clear defiance of the Shura principle, the Brotherhood’s supreme leader, Mohammed Badie, imposed his opinion following a wave of divisions within the Guidance Office as a result of pushing Mohamed Morsi into the presidential elections.

It is noteworthy that the Shura Council of the group consists of at least 30 members, representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s branches in different countries.

In this regard, former senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood and researcher specializing in Islamic movements Sameh Eid told The Reference in an interview that around 90 percent of the group’s Shura Council are in prison, pointing out that Mahmoud Ezzat, the brotherhood’s Chargé d’Affaires has disappeared and no one knows where he is.

He also pointed out that Hussein and Mounir resort to blackmail to control young Muslim Brotherhood members in Turkey by threaten them that their residencies will not be renewed, which means handing them to the Egyptian authority.

With regard to recent leaks and investigations, which was opened and then resolved again, he said they are temporary committees that are being control the composed by  Mahmoud Hussein and a narrow circle around him.

Hussein admitted he used donations to buy property, as well as spending $100,000 on a car. And this at a time the group’s younger members are eking by on 200 Turkish lira a month, or else have had all financial assistance removed.