Egypt Prosecutor Orders Mursi to Be Held ahead of Rallies

Local Editor

Egypt's state prosecutor ordered that ousted president Mohamed Mursi be detained for questioning over suspected collaboration with Palestinian group Hamas, official MENA news agency reported Friday.

Mursi will be quizzed on whether he collaborated with Hamas in attacks on police stations and prison breaks in early 2011, in which the Brotherhood and other political inmates escaped during the revolt against strongman Hosni Mubarak, it said.

Meanwhile, Brotherhood spokesman Gehad al-Haddad said: "The accusations read as if they're a retaliation from the old regime, signaling 'We're back in full force."
Earlier, the army threatened to turn its guns on those who use violence, its starkest warning yet ahead of what both sides expect will be a bloody showdown in the streets between supporters and opponents of Mursi.

An army official said the military had issued an ultimatum to Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, giving the group until Saturday to sign up to a plan for political reconciliation which it has so far spurned.
The army has summoned Egyptians into the streets for Friday and made clear it intends the day to mark a turning point in its confrontation with the followers of Mursi, the elected leader the generals removed on July 3.

The Brotherhood, which has maintained a street vigil for a month with thousands of followers demanding Mursi's return, has called its own counter-demonstrations across the country in a "day to remove the coup."
Both sides have dramatically escalated rhetoric ahead of Friday's demonstrations. The Brotherhood accused the army of pushing the nation toward civil war and committing a crime worse than destroying Islam's holiest site.

The army issued its warning in a statement posted on a Facebook page. It will not "turn its guns against its people," the statement said, "but it will turn them against black violence and terrorism which has no religion or nation".

A military official said the army had given the Brotherhood 48 hours from Thursday afternoon to join the political process. He did not reveal what the consequences would be if the Brotherhood refused.
Army chief General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has called on Egyptians to take to the streets and give him a "mandate" to take action against the violence that has convulsed Egypt since he ousted its first freely elected president.

After a month in which close to 200 people have died in violence triggered by Mursi's downfall, many fear the protests will lead to more bloodshed.
Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Badie issued a statement accusing Sisi of committing a crime worse than destroying the Kaaba - the site in Mecca to which all Muslims face when they pray - "brick by brick."

But many Egyptians are no less passionately backing the army, determined to see the Brotherhood reined in. "There are men carrying guns on the street ... We will not let extremists ruin our revolution," said Mohammad Abdel-Aziz, a spokesman for Tamarod, an anti-Mursi petition campaign that mobilized protests against his rule. "Tomorrow we will cleanse Egypt," he told Reuters.
Sisi announced the nationwide rallies after a bomb attack on a police station in Mansoura, north of Cairo, in which a policeman was killed.
 
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team