A picture distributed by the Egyptian Interior Ministry on August 29,
2013, shows senior Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohammed al-Beltagi (C)
standing between two hooded policemen after his arrest in Cairo.
PHOTO/AFP
CAIRO
Egyptian
police have arrested a wanted senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood
ahead of the group's massive protests aiming to reinstate Mohamed Morsi
as president, official news agency MENA reported Thursday.
The security forces arrested Mohamed al-Beltagi Thursday in a small apartment in Tersa district in Giza governorate, along with Khaled al-Azhary, the former minister of manpower and immigration.
Beltagi has been transferred to Tora prison in southern Cairo, where many other Muslim Brotherhood leaders are detained. Known as the president of Rabaa Square where pro-Morsi protesters had rallied for fifty days, Beltagi was the latest Brotherhood leader detained in a wide-ranging crackdown on the Islamist movement.
In early July, prosecutors had issued a warrant for Beltagi on the charge of inciting violence. Then he was referred in absentia to a criminal court on the same charge as well as for murdering peaceful anti-Morsi protesters.
In a pre-recorded video aired by Al-Jazeera TV Thursday, the Brotherhood leader urged Morsi's loyalists to be patient and resistant.
He stressed Morsi's supporters are defending the people's right to live a free and dignified life and their will to choose their leader, condemning on what he described as a "military coup" that led to the ouster of Morsi.
The arrest came one day before the
massive protests called by the National Alliance for Supporting
Legitimacy, a pro-Morsi bloc, in an attempt to press for the
reinstatement of the "legitimate leader."
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