In a recent development, Egyptian interior minister, Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar, said in a televised broadcast that Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood were behind the assassination of Egypt’s chief prosecutor, Hisham Barakat. In June 2015, a bomb ripped through the chief prosecutor’s vehicle as his motorcade made its way through a Cairo suburb instantly killing the prosecutor and injuring several others.
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Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar noted this assassination of a high ranking Egyptian official is the first in 25 years, which
“Hamas trained, prepared, and oversaw the implementation.”
The Brotherhood denies any responsibility for the assassination despite Egyptian officials considering the group to be the chief perpetrators of most of the political violence in the country.
Dozens have been arrested in the case and recently, six more were arrested and will be detained 15 days pending an investigation by Egypt’s chief prosecutor, Nabil Sadek (Sadek took over as chief prosecutor after Hisham Barakat was killed).
Barakat was overseeing thousands of cases against Islamists at the time of his death, which led to the Egyptian government passing a very stringent anti-terrorism law that covers a broad spectrum of what is considered crimes of terrorism that includes giving law enforcement ‘greater powers of arrest and tightened restrictions on free speech.’
Egypt’s heavy crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has seen hundreds of Islamists being sentenced to death or life imprisonment for their roles in the group, whether active or in a support role, thus causing escalating violence by Jihadist militants against Egyptian Security Forces
In light of this recent development, it was only days ago that senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, met with Egyptian officials to improve relations between the two and improve humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip. Currently, there’s no word from Hamas officials regarding the recent televised statement by Egyptian interior minister directly naming them and the Muslim Brotherhood as the responsible party behind the 2015 assassination of Barakat or how it may affect Hamas-Egypt relations.
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