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| By Associated Press December 13, 2006 |
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Police on Thursday arrested the third highest ranking member of Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, security officials and the group said.
The arrest came a few days after student members of the group staged a militia-style demonstration at Al-Azhar University outside of Cairo.
Mohammed Khayrat el-Shater, 55, was taken from his home early Thursday, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press.
The Brotherhood said police also arrested more than 180 students and university members including el-Shater's son-in-law. But security officials could not immediately confirm those arrests.
El-Shater is the Brotherhood's second deputy and is known as the group's main financier and strategist. He joined the Brotherhood in 1974 and has been imprisoned four times for a total of seven years on charges relating to his membership in the group.
The Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic opposition group, had distanced itself from the militia style demonstration by student members whom it said they were acting on their own.
On Monday, police said they began a probe into whether the Muslim Brotherhood is setting up a military wing after members demonstrated at a Cairo university in black-clad militia-style uniforms.
"That was only a play they were performing inside the campus," the group's deputy leader Mohammed Habib said in a statement. He said the group will take unspecified disciplinary measures against the students.
About 50 Brotherhood student members staged a military-style parade in black uniform and balaclavas during a protest Sunday by hundreds of Brotherhood supporters at the Al-Azhar Islamic University campus.
Leaders denied the group had a militia or a military wing.
The parade also has drawn criticism from secular government papers, opposition parties and columnists.
"The group is trying to flex its muscles and create institutions parallel to those of the state," wrote Karam Gabr, editor-in-chief of the state-owned newspaper Rose El-Youssef.
"This parade heralds the destruction of Egypt," wrote Hamdy Rizq in the independent daily Al Masry Al Youm.
The leftist Tagamou Party also urged the government to probe the incident.
No members of the Brotherhood were arrested during Sunday's demonstration, called to protest the expulsion of some of the group's supporters from universities. None of the students was armed.
Police were gathering evidence on the students, trying to determine if they acted on their own in wearing the uniforms or on instructions from the Brotherhood's leadership, security officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
The Brotherhood, which renounced violence in the 1970s, is banned in Egypt and hundreds of its members have been arrested the past year. Still, it is the most powerful political rival to the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
It won 88 of parliament's 454 seats in elections a year ago, with its candidates running as independents.
The Brotherhood, which was officially banned in 1954, has always accused by the government of aiming to set up an Islamic government in Egypt.
The group established a military wing during the 1948 Middle East war to fight against Jewish forces setting up the state of Israel. The militia also fought the British army which stayed in Egypt until withdraw in 1956. It was accused of an attempted assassination against former President Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
But since the 1970s, it has said it is adhering only to political activity. In recent months, the group has been increasing its influence in powerful trade unions and using its new weight in parliament to issue challenges to Mubarak's administration. |
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