The Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohammad Badie was arrested in a coastal city and an arrest warrant was issued for his deputy and powerful businessman Khairat el-Shater, the Associated Press reported.

Badie was arrested in Marsa Matrouh, a Mediterranean city close to the Libyan border, according to AP. He had been staying in a villa owned by a businessman with Brotherhood links, AP quoted a security official as saying.

Badie is on a wanted list of more than 200 Brotherhood officials and leaders of other Islamist groups.

Badie and his deputy Shater are wanted on charges of inciting the killing Sunday of protesters in front of the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo’s southern neighborhood of Mokattam, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Immediately after the ouster of Mursi on Wednesday, warrants were issued for the arrest of a total of 300 Brotherhood officials, state media reported.

Saad al-Katatni, head of the ousted president’s Freedom and Justice Party, and the Brotherhood’s deputy supreme guide Rashad Bayoumi were arrested and transferred to prison, the official MENA news agency reported.

Egyptian judicial authorities, meanwhile, opened an investigation into accusations that deposed Mursi and 15 other Islamists had insulted the judiciary, investigating judge Tharwat Hammad said, imposing a travel ban on all of them.

It was second formal order banning Mursi from leaving the country since the military removed the Muslim Brotherhood politician from power.

A senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood said the group will not take up arms after the military overthrew its member Mursi but it will not accept a "military coup."

“This is a military coup. We will remain and deprive it of legitimacy until it is corrected,” Mohamed el-Beltagy told reporters at a pro-Mursi sit-in outside a mosque in Cairo.

Asked if the Brotherhood might take up arms, he said: “No. That is unlikely.” The 85-year-old movement, long suppressed during years of military-backed rule, renounced violence decades ago.

Al Arabiya TV quoted a Brotherhood leader as saying the Islamist groups rejects sharing “usurped authority” with other political forces. The unnamed Islamist called for calm and denounced the “police state.”

A military spokesman, meanwhile, has denied reports that the commander of Egypt’s second army is a supporter of Mursi and that he is in dispute with the top military leadership over the Islamist leader’s ouster.







Infographic: Mursi: down and out in four days (Design by Farwa Rizwan / Al Arabiya English)

Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 13:50 - GMT 10:50