Senior Brotherhood leaders Essam El-Erian (L) and Mohamed El-Beltagy (R), along with preacher Safwat Hegazy (C), are accused of inciting violence against those who demonstrated outside the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo. (Al Arabiya)
Egypt's prosecutor general ordered on Sunday the arrest of two high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials accused of inciting violence following the ouster of former president Mohammad Mursi, Youm 7 newspaper reported.
Essam El-Erian and Mohamed El-Beltagy are both accused of inciting violence against those who demonstrated outside the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo earlier this week.
Office of the prosecutor general also issued an arrest warrant to the preacher Safwat Hegazy, also a Muslim Brotherhood’s supporter, on the same charges.
The Egyptian authorities began detaining a number of Muslim Brotherhood officials since the toppling of Mursi last Wednesday by a popularly backed military coup.
It has previously ordered to arrest the Islamist group’s top leader, Mohamed Badie, but wasn’t able to capture him.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s deputy head, Khairat al-Shater, and the group’s former head Mahdy Akef are already detained by the police.
Akef was accused of hiring a sniper to attack protesters trying to storm the group’s headquarters.
But he denied the accusations by sniper Mustapha Mohamed, who had turned himself and confessed that he received orders from group officials to maim and kill those attempting to raid their office.
Mohamed said the Islamist group provided him with rubber-bullets and machine guns.
