Egypt's Brotherhood offers support to presidential hopeful Sami Anan

A senior Muslim Brotherhood leader has written an open letter from exile to a retired Egyptian army general seeking to run for president, listing the outlawed group's conditions for supporting his candidacy.

Youssef Nada's letter was posted on his Facebook account on Monday.

The letter has provided media loyal to President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi with ammunition to link the would-be candidate, former chief of staff Sami Annan, to the banned Brotherhood.

Authorities accuse the group of taking up arms against the government.

Sisi led the military's 2013 coup against former president Mohammed Morsi, a democratically elected Islamist aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Under Sisi, links to the Brotherhood are grounds for prosecution.

Nada cited the demand to free Morsi, in jail since 2013, as one of the Brotherhood's conditions for supporting Annan.

Anan served as the chief of staff of Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces under President Hosni Mubarak from 2005 to 2011, commanding 468,000 troops.

Following the 2011 uprising, he became second in command of the army, behind Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, however, in August 2012 Morsi, dismissed both Tantawi and Anan.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last week announced his intention to run for second four-year term.

In December, a military court sentenced an army colonel to six years in prison after he announced his intention to run against Sisi.