World Bulletin/News Desk

An Egyptian court on Saturday adjourned to June 3 the trial of two Islamist leaders, including leading Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed al-Beltagi, accused of "torturing" two policemen at a major Cairo sit-in last summer.

Defendants also include Salafist preacher Safwat Hegazi and two doctors who had worked at a field hospital at the sit-in, which was set up last summer in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

In mid-August of last year, the sit-in was violently dispersed by security forces, leaving hundreds dead and thousands injured.

Prosecutors have accused the four men of kidnapping two policemen and torturing them in a tent in Rabaa Square before a local official managed to negotiate their release.

Trial defendants are also charged with resisting authorities, "forming a gang with the aim of preventing the enforcement of law," "preventing police from doing their work" and "thuggery."

Al-Beltagi was arrested on August 29 of last year. He is now in jail pending investigation into multiple incitement-to-violence charges, which he emphatically denies.

Hegazi was arrested on similar charges on August 21.

Egyptian authorities have launched a massive crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood since last July's ouster of Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president and a Brotherhood leader himself.

Thousands of Brotherhood leaders and members have since been arrested on violence charges – allegations the group insists are politically motivated.