67 people to be tried for assassination of General Prosecutor Hesham Barakat

Egypt’s public prosecutor has referred 67 people to criminal trial for their alleged involvement in the June 2015 assassination of General Prosecutor Hesham Barakat.

In a Sunday statement, the office of the prosecutor said an investigation by the National Security Agency found that the defendants belong to the banned Muslim Brotherood group and carried out the assassination in coordination with the Palestinian Hamas.

These charges are based in part on confessions by 45 defendants, according to the prosecutor’s statement, cited by the privately owned Al-Shorouk newspaper.

Barakat was killed in a June 29, 2015 car bombing near his home in Heliopolis. The incident marked the first assassination of a prosecutor general in Egyptian history, as well as the most significant assault on a high-profile government official since the wave of violence against police and military forces first broke out in the aftermath of former President Mohamed Morsi’s military-mandated ouster in July 2013.

The charges leveled by the prosecution echo earlier claims by Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar. In a March press conference, Abdel Ghaffar said the assassination was part of a wider plan exposed by the National Security Agency to assassinate top officials. The plan, he said, was led by Muslim Brotherhood members living in Turkey, in coordination with Hamas, which helped the Brotherhood form and train armed groups.

On March 6, the Interior Ministry said it had arrested 14 people in connection with the attack, and released a video showing confessions by alleged Muslim Brotherhood members. In the video, the members recount how they joined the group, their participation in Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins and their coordination with Hamas to plan the attack.  

All confessions pointed to Yehia Moussa as the orchestrator of the attack. Moussa was the Health Ministry spokesperson during Mohamed Morsi’s rule and is now based in Turkey.

Both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have denied the allegations. In a March 7 statement, the Muslim Brotherhood denied involvement in the attack, saying this is part of the Interior Ministry’s efforts to “demonize” the group.

In separate March statement, Hamas refuted Egypt’s accusations, saying they are not in line with “efforts to develop relations between Hamas and Cairo.” The movement called on Egypt to take responsibility and not drag Hamas’ name into internal Egyptian conflicts.