CAIRO: Gunmen shot dead an Egyptian officer in charge of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood file at the interior ministry’s national security agency, the ministry said yesterday.
Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Mabruk was gunned down while in his car outside his home late on Sunday, it said.
Security officials said his work had focused on Islamist groups that have escalated their attacks since the July 3 overthrow of president Mohamed Mursi.
Deputy interior minister Abdel Fattah Osman said police believed he was assassinated because of his work. “The link is a certainty, it is the basis for this criminal act,” he said in an interview with the private ONTV broadcaster.
One security official said Mabruk had been involved in drafting the charges against Mursi and Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie that led to trials for both Islamists.
Mabruk had been due to testify this week against Mursi who is accused of working with groups such as Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah to escape from prison during the popular 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
Police said Mabruk was hit by seven bullets fired by three gunmen in the Cairo neighbourhood of Nasr City.
A security official said the attack rattled the interior ministry and that it “will be investigated at the highest levels”.
Egyptian authorities blamed Islamist militants for the high-profile shooting death, heightening security fears in a country on the edge with mass protests looming. Police and army sealed off Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the eve of a planned major rally to commemorate bloody clashes two years ago between demonstrators and security forces on nearby Mohamed Mahmoud street. Security forces killed 42 people opposed to the military council ruling Egypt at the time.
The army toppled elected president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood on July 3, a year after he took over from the generals. Since then, militants based in the Sinai Peninsula have stepped up attacks on security forces in Egypt, one of the United States’ most important regional allies.
In a statement, prime minister Hazem Al Beblawi condemned Mabruk’s “assassination by treacherous hands”.
“The government will not tolerate criminal and terrorist groups who raise their arms to terrorise security officials,” Beblawi said.
He said the authorities are “able to cleanse the country of all criminal hands, returning security and safety to all corners of Egypt”.
No one has yet admitted responsiblity for the attack.
Al Qaeda-inspired groups have claimed previous attacks in the capital, including a September bombing that targeted interior minister Mohammed Ibrahim’s convoy. He survived the bombing.
The attack on Ibrahim was seen as a precedent by Sinai militant groups that had previously limited their operations to the restive peninsula.
Unrest has spiked in Egypt since the military overthrew Mursi more than four months ago. A subsequent crackdown against supporters of Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood has left more than 1,000 people dead and upwards of 2,000 behind bars.
Agencies
