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Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters of Egyptian President Morsy arrive outside the Egyptian presidential palace on 5 December. (AFP Photo / Gianluigi Guercia)
A leaked report from the state forensics authority suggests that weapons used to shoot protesters at the presidential palace clashes last Wednesday belonged to Muslim Brotherhood members.
Independent ONTV news channel reported Tuesday that the forensics laboratory had matched weapons confiscated during the arrest of Muslim Brotherhood members to bullets found in victims’ bodies. The weapons captured included 9 mm, 5.5 mm and 6.35 mm firearms.
“Nine millimetre firearms are not made in Egypt,” said Malek Adly, a lawyer at the Front for Defending Egypt’s Protesters. He added that such neither is that calibre police issue. “If they belonged to the police, forensics would have announced that.”
Adly said the weapons were taken from four Muslim Brotherhood members arrested Thursday after the presidential palace clashes. At least two of them carried Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) membership cards.
He said the four were still in custody and an investigation is ongoing.
Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsood said the Brotherhood was not representing the four. The FJP’s legal adviser, Mokhtar Al-Ashry, could not be reached for comment regarding the arrests.
“The prosecution ordered the summoning of all those who were detained and tortured by Muslim Brotherhood supporters so that the forensics could examine them,” Adly said, adding that the prosecution also ordered the arrest of the Brotherhood supporters who detained them. “Some of them were identified from videos of the palace clashes.”
Blogger Wael Abbass published on his blog Egyptian Awareness a report from the Cabinet’s Information Centre regarding the palace clashes. The report included a bullet-point reading:
“Muslim Brotherhood youth used automatic weapons to shoot at protesters.”
Abbass claimed he had received this report from Anonymous, an online activist group. He stated on his blog that Anonymous members hacked a classified email sent from Osama Singer, the head of crisis management at the Cabinet’s Information Centre. Among the recipients of the email, Abbass claimed, was Prime Minister Hesham Qandil. Daily News Egypt could not independently verify the authenticity of the report.
The Wednesday clashes left at least six people dead, according to the Ministry of Health’s death toll. The Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme Guide Mohamed Badie announced on Saturday that the Brotherhood lost eight of its members in the clashes.
Additional reporting by Joel Gulhane
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