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Egypt Links Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas to Prosecutor’s 2015 Assassination

Ordering 15-day detention for the suspects, the prosecution accused them of belonging to a terrorist group and attempting to harm social peace.

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Barakat, 64, was killed in a auto bomb attack on June 29 in the upscale east Cairo district of Heliopolis.

Interior Ministry Magdi Abdel Ghaffar told a news conference that the attack was ordered by Turkey-based leaders of Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement and coordinated with Hamas.

On Saturday six people were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the assassination.

A small group calling itself the “Giza Popular Resistance” had claimed responsibility for the attack on its Facebook page shortly after the bombing but the authenticity of the claim had never been verified.

The Brotherhood, Egypt’s main opposition movement for decades, was blacklisted as a “terrorist group” in December 2013.

Barakat was killed by a massive bombing outside his home, in the first assassination of a senior Egyptian official in 25 years. “The accusations against Hamas regarding the assassination of prosecutor general Hisham Barakat are false and run contrary to efforts to strengthen relations between Hamas and Cairo”, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told the movement’s Al-Aqsa television channel. Abdel-Ghaffar accused the Islamic militant group Hamas of training the Brotherhood members who allegedly carried out the explosion.

Interior minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar said on Sunday that 14 members of the Muslim Brotherhood participated directly in the plan to assassinate Barakat, who died in a auto bomb attack in June a year ago. Most are students at Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s pre-eminent institution for religious learning.

The plot was “carried out on the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood in close coordination with Hamas”, Egypt’s interior minister said on Sunday. He was the most senior state official assassinated since the toppling in mid-2013 of elected president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The government has blamed most of the violence on the Brotherhood – including attacks claimed by more extreme groups. The current Egyptian government says insurgents have used tunnels between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to smuggle in arms.

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Ties between Egypt and Hamas have deteriorated since Morsi’s overthrow.

Six Muslim Brotherhood members detained over Egyptian public prosecutor killing