Cairo: Egypt’s chief prosecutor has been killed in a bomb attack carried out in Cairo on the eve of the anniversary of protests that led to the overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
The bomb exploded as a convoy carrying Prosecutor General Hesham Barakat was passing through his neighbourhood in northern Cairo, state television reported on Monday.
Nine people, including civilians and policemen, were also injured in the blast.
Barakat is the highest-profile victim of a series of assassinations that have targeted mainly police officers in the Egyptian capital.
A security source told state-owned egynews.net the initial investigation indicated that his convoy was hit by a remotely detonated highly explosive device.
A militant group called the Popular Resistance claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Facebook. The claim could not immediately be verified.
The group, thought to be close to Mursi’s banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, has previously claimed small bomb attacks in the capital.
Security forces cordoned off the area to search for any further explosives.
President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi held an urgent meeting with Interior Minister Majdi Abdul Gaffar to review the situation.
In September 2013, Egypt’s then interior minister, Mohammad Ebrahim, survived a similar attack.
Scores of policemen have died in gun and bomb attacks in Cairo since August 2013, when the security forces killed hundreds of protesters calling for the return of ousted president Mursi.
Prosecutors have played a key role in the crackdown on the Islamist movement, referring hundreds of alleged Mursi supporters to trial on charges including the murder of policemen, violence and holding illegal demonstrations.
Monday’s attack comes ahead of calls for protests by members of the Muslim Brotherhood to commemorate the June 30 protests that led to Mursi’s removal. Other secular groups have called for protests against economic and political conditions.
In a related development, the Sinai Province group, a Daesh affiliate, posted a video on social networks purporting to show the May 16 killing of three judges in the Sinai Peninsula.
The judges were shot dead just hours after a Cairo court issued a death sentence against Mursi over his alleged role in a 2011 jailbreak.
In the video, Sinai Province vowed to continue “liquidating” judges.
“Some criminals [judges] ... betrayed God’s vows, judging people unjustly by atheist laws, acquitting criminals and setting the corrupt free, while putting the innocent to trial,” the video’s narrator said.
Sinai Province was known as Ansar Beit Al Maqdis until last year when it pledged allegiance to the Daesh group based in Syria and Iraq. It has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly attacks on security forces, mainly in Sinai, as well as the assassination attempt against Ebrahim.
A number of smaller attacks on security forces in Cairo have been claimed by groups with names such as Popular Resistance, Revolutionary Punishment or the Execution Brigade.
Their affiliations are not clear, but some analysts have suggested that they may be linked to Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which officially says it is committed to peaceful protest.
