The prosecutions could be an effort to put more pressure on the group to strike a deal to end the current crisis, said Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Doha Center. The protest showed tensions still running dangerously high in Egypt despite the mediation effort by the United States, the European Union, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The state news agency said earlier that diplomats, including U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and European Union envoy Bernardino Leon, had met Shater after midnight at the Tora Prison where he is being held south of Cairo. Mr Badie and several other senior Brotherhood figures were arrested on charges of inciting violence and complicity in the deaths of anti-Morsi demonstrators during rallies in July. Mr. Morsi, who has been detained in an undisclosed location since his ouster, is also under investigation for purported collaboration with the Islamist militant group Hamas and his escape from prison during the uprising that led to Mr. Mubarak’s ouster. Few official details have been given, but the hope is clearly to prevent further violence and bloodshed, correspondents say. Thousands of Morsi supporters have been defying warnings from the authorities to abandon the sit-ins in Cairo at Nahda Square and outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, in the east of the capital. During Monday's march, protesters sprayed graffiti on walls and statues calling army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led Mursi's overthrow, a murderer and a traitor.  Image caption A government helicopter dropped leaflets on protesters in Rabaa al-Adawiya square in Cairo urging them to go home 
 
 US senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are due to arrive in Cairo as diplomatic efforts to end Egypt's political crisis intensify.
– A month after Mohamed Morsi was driven from power in Egypt, three leading Muslim Brotherhood figures face an impending trial. A Cairo court ruling yesterday will send Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammed Badie, deputy Khairat al-Shater, and top official Mohamed Bayoumi to court on Aug. 25 for allegedly inciting the killing of rioters outside the organization's headquarters. Badie's arrest marked the first for a Brotherhood supreme guide since 1981, the New York Times notes. The trial could mark an effort to shut down continuing protests by Brotherhood backers, including a pair of sit-ins, says an expert, adding that some opponents see it as an "opportunity to destroy the Brotherhood." Meanwhile, demonstrations continue, with thousands of Morsi supporters taking to the streets in a Cairo march today, Reuters reports. "We are not terrorists," they chanted as they called for the former leader's reinstatement. Security forces didn't move to halt the protest, but a government helicopter dropped literature at the sit-ins urging protesters to leave. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are set to arrive in Cairo today, the BBC reports; they join other US and EU officials in a push for resolution.