The United States government concurred with Egypt on the necessity of punishing those involved in the assassination of late Egyptian prosecutor general Hesham Barakat, said US department of state spokesman Mark Toner.
The US stands with Egypt in the fight against terrorism, Toner told the Egyptian state-owned MENA.
He added that the US is aware of the reports pointing to the arrest of six persons involved in the incident, and they understand that the investigation will take time to be completed.
Fourteen persons were arrested Sunday on suspicion of being involved in the assassination of former prosecutor general Hisham Barakat.
In a press conference Sunday, Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel Ghaffar said the suspects belong to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He moreover declared they were trained by elements from the Gaza-based Hamas organisation, who infiltrated national borders.
“We managed to unravel a large-scale and long-standing plot, in which the martyr Hisham Barakat was one of the top targets, and which included another set of terrorist operations,” Abdel Ghaffar said.
The minister said the plan for the “plot” was initiated upon instructions from Brotherhood leaders in Turkey, who coordinated with the “armed branch of the Brotherhood, Hamas”, which in turn took part in executing the assassination of the prosecutor general.
Reports by state-run media said Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek ordered on Sunday the detention of six persons suspected of taking part in the assassination of Barakat.
Barakat was assassinated in June 2015 in an attack targeting his motorcade. The assassination, which marked the first of such a high-profile figure since 1990, sparked an instantaneous response from the state. Shortly after Barakat’s funeral, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi announced legal amendments to be implemented in order to speed up trials and the enforcement of verdicts.
