Brotherhood, Hamas involved prosecutor's killing: Egypt

Egypt today accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood of being involved in the assassination of its chief prosecutor, the first top Egyptian official to be murdered in 25 years.
Egyptian Interior Minister Magdy Abdul Ghaffar said that Muslim Brotherhood collaborated with Hamas to kill former general prosecutor Hisham Barakat in a car bomb last June.
Barakatm, 65, died hours after the powerful bomb hit his convoy in Cairo on June 29 in east Cairo.
"This plot was carried out on the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood... In close coordination with Hamas, which played a very important role in the assassination of the chief prosecutor from start to finish," Ghaffar told reporters.

In a televised address, Ghaffar said Hamas trained Brotherhood members in the Gaza Strip to carry out the plot. "Hamas trained, prepared, and oversaw the implementation," of the assassination, he said.
Fourteen Brotherhood members took part in killing Barakat and a group of 48 members planned for the plot, and they were arrested, Ghaffar said.

"Hamas played a very big role in last year's assassination of Egyptian chief prosecutor Hesham Barakat. Elements from Hamas took part through planning and training," he added.
Barakat, who oversaw cases against thousands of Islamists, was killed in the blast as he left his home. It was the first assassination of a senior Egyptian official in 25 years.

The assassination, which has never been owned by any group, came as a blow to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army chief who overthrew Islamist president Mohammad Morsi and won 2014 elections pledging to wipe out militants.
The Brotherhood, Egypt's main opposition movement for decades, was blacklisted as a "terrorist group" in December 2013.