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Egypt to investigate Morsi for 2011 jailbreak

Updated: 2013-07-12 08:19
( Agencies)

News of the intended investigation came one day after authorities issued arrest warrants for the Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie, and nine other Islamists accused of inciting violence after deadly clashes - the latest moves by the new military-backed government as it tries to choke off the group's campaign to reinstate Morsi.

The warrants drew an angry response from the Brotherhood, which said "dictatorship is back" and insisted it will never work with the interim rulers.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Ali Amr to express his "deep concern about continued detentions in Egypt and arrest warrants issued against Muslim Brotherhood leaders and others."

Ban said, "There is no place for retribution or for the exclusion of any major party or community in Egypt."

Badie's whereabouts are not known, but many of the others are believed to be taking refuge somewhere near a continuing sit-in by the group's supporters outside the Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque in an eastern Cairo district that is traditionally a Brotherhood stronghold.

Security agencies have already jailed five leaders of the Brotherhood, including Badie's powerful deputy, Khairat el-Shaiter, and shut down its media outlets.

The prosecutor general's office said Badie, another deputy, Mahmoud Ezzat, el-Beltagy and popular preacher Safwat Hegazy are suspected of instigating Monday's clashes with security forces outside a Republican Guard building that killed 54 people - most Morsi supporters - in the worst bloodshed since he was ousted.

The Islamists have accused the troops of gunning down the protesters, while the military blamed armed backers of Morsi for attempting to storm a military building.

The arrest warrants highlight the armed forces' zero-tolerance policy toward the Brotherhood, which was banned under authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

"This just signals that dictatorship is back," said Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref. "We are returning to what is worse than Mubarak's regime, which wouldn't dare to issue an arrest warrant of the general leader of the Muslim Brotherhood."

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