Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has strongly rejected Egypt’s accusations that the movement was behind the last year’s assassination of the country’s top prosecutor, calling them as “baseless”.
“Hamas calls on all parties in Egypt not to involve Palestinian factions in their internal differences,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a press release on Sunday, adding that the faulty Egyptian accusations were not in harmony with the efforts to develop mutual relationship between Hamas and Cairo.
The denial came hours after Egyptian Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar told a news conference in Cairo that both Egypt’s now-banned Muslim Brotherhood movement and Gaza-based Hamas were involved in the assassination of Public Prosecutor Hisham Barakat in a car bomb attack in late June 2015.
Egyptian authorities have so far detained 14 people in connection with the killing and secured a number of vehicles, which they claimed were prepared for detonation.
Abdel Ghaffar also said that there would be “measures taken” against the Palestinian group, which “oversaw the implementation” of the attack.
In a response to the accusations, the Muslim Brotherhood also dismissed the accusations.
“You are the real the conspiracy against Egypt. You are the murderers. Look amongst you for the killers of your public prosecutor you infidels and murderers,” the group's spokesman Mohamed Montaser said in a statement.
There have been no credible claims of responsibility for the bombing that killed the 64-year-old state prosecutor outside his house.