CAIRO: Authorities arrested 11 people, including a Syrian student, over links with armed groups, a security official said on Friday.
The Syrian suspect and two Egyptian students were referred to court on charges of membership in an illegal organization aimed at overthrowing the regime as well as adopting jihadist ideology, the source said.
All those arrested are suspected of links with armed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the source, without specifying when the arrests took place.
The students were enrolled at three different Egyptian universities and the Syrian suspect is believed to have been recruiting the students on behalf of armed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, the source said.
The Syrian student allegedly planned to recruit students to send them to Iraq and Afghanistan, to fight US-led forces in those countries, the source added.
The students denied, however, any links with armed groups, according to a report Friday in the independent Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper.
According to the paper, the students were physically abused by Egyptian police, who submitted them to electrical shocks and forced them to keep standing for five hours. -AFP
