CAIRO (AA) – An Egyptian lawyer and senior Bar Association member on Monday slammed reports linking the Sunday killing in Cairo of a police officer to an ongoing probe into ousted president Mohamed Morsi's escape from prison in early 2011.
Late Sunday, gunmen assassinated Lt. Col. Mohamed Mabrouk, a senior Egyptian police officer in charge of the counter-terrorism file at the Interior Ministry's Homeland Security Agency.
Following the police officer's killing, some critics of the Muslim Brotherhood suggested that Mabrouk had been killed by Islamists since he had been slated to give testimony regarding allegations that Morsi illegally escaped from Wadi al-Natrun Prison during Egypt's 2011 uprising.
"This is a wrong conclusion," lawyer Mohamed al-Damati, spokesman for the defense team in a separate trial in which Morsi is also a defendant, told Anadolu Agency.
"There are many witnesses in the case. Does this mean they'll all be killed?" he asked.
Al-Damati went on to assert that the Brotherhood's opponents sought to embroil the group, from which Morsi hails, in illogical debates.
Morsi is currently being investigated on charges that he illegally broke out of Wadi al-Natrun Prison on the outskirts of Cairo and – aided by "Egyptian and foreign elements" – attacked the prison during the 2011 uprising that ended the Hosni Mubarak regime.
Sunday's killing received widespread condemnation, including from Egypt's Al-Azhar institution, the world's highest seat of Sunni-Muslim scholarship, which described the assassination as a "terrorist act."
The religious institution added that targeting police personnel contradicted the Islamic faith.
"Al-Azhar refuses to accuse anybody of the murder, but calls for bringing the perpetrators to justice," it declared in a statement.
Mabrouk, 39, was followed through the streets of Cairo's Nasr City late Sunday by four gunmen in two separate vehicles who eventually showered the police officer with bullets, a security source told Anadolu Agency.
The slain officer received seven bullets in the head, chest and neck, he added.
According to the source, Mabrouk had been in charge of the counter-terrorism file at Egypt's Homeland Security Agency, which replaced Mubarak's notorious State Security Agency, disbanded in the wake of the 2011 uprising.
By Hussein Qabani
englishnews@aa.com.tr
