Parliament speaker Ali Abdul Aal denied rumours circulating on social media outlets that security forces have been conducting extra-judicial killings in the North Sinai city of Al-Arish, a state-run media outlet reported.
The parliament speaker’s comments came in the context of discussing an urgent statement by members of parliament representing Al-Arish.
“Army and police forces are sacrificing their souls on a daily basis; there are electronic battalions that are targeting Egypt, its people, army and police. We [Egyptians] should not only depend on notorious websites and build unrealistic opinions,” Abdul Aal said.
An urgent memo by the MPs of Al-Arish stipulated that residents of North Sinai were surprised by a statement from the Interior Ministry in which it said that it killed several perpetrators of recent attacks that struck the city.
The statement further asserted that when they heard about the Interior Ministry’s statement, the residents of Al-Arish welcomed it, but were later shocked when they heard that some residents had claimed that the people killed by the ministry were in fact people that had been detained by authorities a few months earlier.
The statement called for the formation of an investigative committee to look into the incident and asked a sovereign entity affiliated to the Egyptian Armed Forces to open urgent investigations regarding the matter.
On Saturday night, families in Al-Arish echoed outrage against the recent operations conducted by the Interior Ministry against the perpetrators of the two deadly attacks that hit Al-Arish a week ago and left eight police officers and a civilian dead, a North Sinai based journalist told Daily News Egypt on Monday on condition of anonymity.
The meeting came in the wake of a raid executed by the Interior Ministry against a residence, which according to the ministry was used as a shelter by the perpetrators of the recent attacks.
Security sources also denied accusations made during the meeting, which claimed that the police detained their relatives and killed them.
The ministry said that the perpetrators opened fire against police forces that stormed their residence. Consequently, security forces responded by killing all 10 alleged perpetrators.
