CAIRO: A senior police officer was killed and two others injured during a shootout in the city of Suez Wednesday while chasing a wanted drug dealer, the Ministry of Interior confirmed in a statement Thursday.
Ibrahim Abdel-Maaboud, head of criminal investigations in Suez city, died at the Mubarak Police Hospital in Cairo after sustaining gunshot wounds. Two other officers who were with Abdel-Maaboud, head of investigations at the Ataqa police station Ahmed Mohamed Fathi Al-Bahi and Suez criminal investigations officer Ahmed Yousri Abdel-Halim, remain in critical condition.
The policemen were on the trail of a suspected drug dealer by the name of Ahmed Eid, 26, after a tip off that he was in the Muthalath area of the city near the Suez Canal. Eid is wanted on three charges of drugs, possessing firearms without a license and firing at a police vehicle.
The ministry statement claimed that Eid fired on the approaching police force in their vehicles with a semi-automatic weapon which caused the injuries that the officers sustained, and which later led to the death of Abdel-Maaboud.
Police forces have formed a security cordon around the area as well as the city limits to ensure that the suspect does not escape Suez. Eid is still at large and is believed to remain somewhere in the Muthalath area.
The online news portal Masrawy reported that Eid was behind the murder of a police officer in Suez last year while on route to conduct a drug deal in the Muthalath area.
This charge was not mentioned in the interior ministry’s official statement.
