Three jailed over Cairo nightclub attack

Cairo: Egyptian prosecutors have ordered the jailing of three suspects in a firebomb attack on a nightclub near Cairo that killed 16 people, a legal source said on Sunday.

The trio are ordered to be kept in police custody for four days pending further investigations, the source added.

They face charges of deliberate murder, arson and illegal possession of explosives.

Two of the suspects, nicknamed Hamasa and Al Majnun (The Crazy) were arrested in the coastal city of Suez in which they had reportedly taken shelter after attacking Friday the nightclub in the Nile-side upmarket quarter of Agouza in Giza.

The third, identified as Mikka, was arrested in the Cairo district of Imababa, police said.

The prime suspect, Hamasa, said in a preliminary inquiry that they attacked the nightclub in revenge after its bodyguards refused to allow them into the place because of their “suspicious” looks.

“We left and decided to take revenge for this insult,” Hamasa, an 18-year-old student, was quoted as saying in local media.

“We prepared Molotov cocktails and returned to throw the, at the nightclub.” His two accomplices are aged 18 and 19.

Police are hunting for a fourth suspect who is on the run, media reported.

An on-site inspection of the nightclub by prosecutors showed that the rise in the death toll was due to the narrow place, which was engulfed in fire caused by the petrol bombs.

The 16 dead- 11 men and five women- were all employees in the nightclub.