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Egypt’s public prosecutor yesterday ordered the freezing of assets belonging to 14 top Islamists, as the US dispatched its first senior official to Cairo since president Mohamed Mursi’s ouster.
American Under Secretary of State Bill Burns will be in Egypt until tomorrow, the State Department said in Washington, adding he would “underscore US support for the Egyptian people”.
His trip comes amid growing pressure on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which is in disarray with key figures either detained, on the run or keeping a low profile.
It also comes amid international calls for the release of Mursi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president who was ousted by the military on July 3.
The Brotherhood has refused to join the new government headed by caretaker prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi who is pushing ahead with talks on forming his cabinet.
The ultra-conservative Islamist party Al-Nur confirmed it would not take part in the interim government either, with spokesman Nader Bakkar telling AFP: “We would participate only in an elected government.”
Yesterday, Beblawi appointed a former ambassador to Washington, Nabil Fahmy, as foreign minister, and veteran World Bank economist Ahmed Galal as finance minister.
Prominent liberal leader Mohamed ElBaradei, 71, was sworn in as interim vice president for foreign relations.
Beblawi has said his cabinet’s priorities would be to restore security, ensure the flow of goods and services and prepare for parliamentary and presidential elections.
The asset freeze is part of an investigation ordered by public prosecutor Hisham Barakat which affects nine Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including the group’s general guide Mohamed Badie, and five Islamists from other groups including ex-militant faction Gamaa Islamiya, judicial sources said.
It relates to four deadly incidents since Mursi’s overthrow, including clashes in Cairo last Monday in which dozens died.
The order comes a day after prosecutors received criminal complaints against Mursi, Badie and other senior Islamists, with a view to launching a formal investigation.
The complaints include spying, incitement to violence and damaging the economy.
Mursi has not been seen in public since his ouster.
In his first public comments since deposing the Islamist leader, military chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi defended the move, saying the army took the decision after Mursi rejecting holding a referendum on his presidency.
“The armed forces, with all its personnel and its leaders, decided without reserve to be at the service of its people and to empower their free will,” he said in a statement.
The interim leaders say Mursi is being held in a “safe place, for his own safety”, despite calls for his release by Germany and the US, which has condemned a wave of arbitrary arrests of Brotherhood members.
Mursi’s ouster has plunged Egypt into violence.
Fighting erupted yesterday between gunmen and the army near Israel, in the Sinai peninsula, which has witnessed a number of deadly attacks in the past week, security sources said.
The worst violence since the military coup took place outside the elite Republican Guard’s Cairo headquarters last Monday, where 53 people, mostly Mursi supporters, were killed in what the Brotherhood described as a “massacre” by the security forces.