(2 Jan 2014) Egyptian authorities produced on Thursday what they said was a confession by the son of a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to bolster accusations that the group has links to al-Qaida-inspired militants.
The county's Interior Minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, aired the recording of what was said to be a young Yahia Mongi, son of a Brotherhood lawmaker.
During the recording Mongi says he joined the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or Champions of Jerusalem, group that claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a police station last month in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, which killed 16 people.
Ibrahim said Mongi's role was surveillance and hosting the group's leader.
The charge that the Brotherhood has links to Ansar Beit al-Maqdis is central to the government's case for labelling the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.
Human rights advocates also say that police frequently use torture and other means of coercion to produce confessions, relying on them in lieu of other evidence to convict defendants.
During a lengthy news conference in Cairo, Ibrahim also listed names of other Muslim Brotherhood members alleged to have crossed to the Gaza Strip to receive training from Hamas.
"Ayman Nofal and Raed Al Attar (from Hamas) helped train Muslim Brotherhood members by offering logistical support in Gaza. They helped transport them to security bases that belonged to the Al Kassam brigades where they were trained to use different weapons," he said.
Ibrahim did not provide any evidence for the claims of training, but he said when the Brotherhood members returned to Egypt they carried a number of attacks including shooting anti-Islamist protesters.
The Muslim Brotherhood does have longstanding ties with its offshoot Hamas, and did ally politically with more radical groups during President Mohammed Morsi's time in office.
But it denies that it practises violence and accuses police of plotting attacks to find a pretext for a heavier crackdown on its members.
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