Egypt’s National Security Agency has detained an interim leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (terrorist organisation, outlawed both in Egypt and Russia), Mahmoud Ezzat, in Cairo’s neighborhood, according to the Interior Ministry.
The ministry said on Friday that Ezzat, who has been wanted for over five years, was found in an apartment located in the New Cairo area, according to security officials.
He became the group’s temporary leader in 2013 after General Guide Mohammad Badie was detained following the overthrow of then-President Mohammed Morsi in the same year.
Some news outlets have previously reported that Ezzat might be on the territory of Turkey or the Gaza Strip.
Dozens of criminal proceedings have been instituted against the group’s top member, and, according to a number of them, he has been sentenced to death.
Apart from other crimes, Ezzat has been charged with planning and leading assassination attempts on Egypt’s security officials, including the country’s prosecutor general, Hisham Barakat, who was killed in a car bomb explosion in June 2015.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 and designated as a terrorist group in 2013 after massive clashes with law enforcement officers, is an international Islamist organisation that has branches in about 70 countries and seeks the Islamisation of society.
To date, most of the movement’s top leadership is in prison, but, at the same time, a number of its top members have managed to escape from the country.
