Egypt on Friday arrested a top leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the latest to be picked up by Cairo’s long-running action against the banned Islamist group.
Mahmoud Ezzat, the group’s acting leader, has already received two death sentences in absentia, as well as life imprisonment.
Egypt has imprisoned thousands of members and supporters of the group since President Mohamed Morsi’s army in 2013, on the back of mass protests against his short-lived rule.
Cairo has blacklisted the Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization, but it has consistently rejected any link to violence.
“National security has communicated information about the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood refugee leader, Mahmud Ezzat,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Ezzat, the statement added, is the “acting supreme leader of the international terrorist organization”.
He was “arrested in a residential area east of the capital, despite persistent rumors circulating by fraternity officials about his presence abroad,” the ministry added.
The 76-year-old had already been convicted on charges including “participating in the management of a terrorist organization”, “collaborating with armed terrorist groups”, and “endangering the foundations of the state”.
Ezzat, a member of the fraternity since the 1960s, spent time in prison under the presidencies of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, and has served several times as the organization’s acting leader.
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