Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood leader arrested

Mahmoud Ezzat, a leader of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, was arrested in Cairo on Friday after seven years on the run, the Interior Ministry said. " National security has communicated information concerning the arrest of the fugitive leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ezzat, who occupies the functions of acting supreme leader of the international terrorist organization ," the ministry said in a statement.

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Aged 76, Ezzat was convicted in particular for the assassination of soldiers and state officials, starting with the former attorney general, Hicham Barakat in 2015. He had been wanted since 2013. The defendant was “ apprehended in a residential area in the east of the capital, despite the incessant rumors circulated by officials of the brotherhood about its presence abroad, ”according to the ministry's statement.

Founded in 1928, the brotherhood established itself in the mid-twentieth century as the main opposition movement in Egypt, as well as in other countries in the region. But the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from the Egyptian political landscape in 2013, after the brief tenure of one of their own, Mohamed Morsi.

The first democratically elected president, after the popular revolt of 2011, Mohamed Morsi was dismissed by the army, then led by Marshal Sissi - who has since become president - in favor of mass demonstrations against him. Member of the brotherhood since the 1960s and of the executive office since 1981, Ezzat went through prison under Presidents Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. He is described as an " iron man " within the Muslim Brotherhood. Considered a terrorist organization by Cairo since the summer of 2013, the brotherhood is now almost destroyed.

More than 900 of his supporters were killed in a single day, in August 2013, during protests in the capital. Thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have been imprisoned, dozens executed and others fled to countries more favorable to their ideas, such as Qatar or Turkey. Mohamed Morsi himself died in the middle of a trial in June 2019.