Egypt Says It Has Arrested 2 Senior Muslim Brotherhood Leaders
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — Two senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghozlan and Abdul Rahman al-Barr, were arrested this week in a suburb of Cairo after evading the police for nearly two years, security officials said Tuesday. Reports of the arrests came the same day that an Egyptian court postponed a session that was expected to confirm a death sentence against the ousted president Mohamed Morsi of the Brotherhood, the mainstream Islamist group that won elections before a military takeover two years ago. The judge put the session off by two weeks, saying he needed more time to review a required opinion from the grand mufti, Egypt’s official Muslim religious authority, before finalizing a sentence. Interior Ministry spokesmen did not immediately confirm the arrests. Mr. Ghozlan had been a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Mr. Barr had issued religious rulings. Since the military takeover, the Egyptian government has labeled the Muslim Brotherhood an illegal terrorist group and arrested many of its top leaders. The rest are presumed to have fled to Istanbul, London or Doha, Qatar. The apprehension of Mr. Ghozlan and Barr in Egypt was a surprise, raising the possibility that other Brotherhood leaders might be evading arrest there as well. |