Egypt’s security forces attacked the house of the Muslim Brotherhood’s deputy leader Khairat el-Shater and “kidnapped” his driver, his son told Al Arabiya on Monday.
A security source told Reuters that 15 bodyguards of Shater were arrested for suspected possession of unlawful firearms.
But the Brotherhood's political party, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), denied the report, and quoted Shater as saying his private driver had been kidnapped after shooting in the area, according to Reuters.
Shater’s son, Saeed Khairat el-Shater, said three police vehicles arrived at the family’s home on Monday evening and began opening fire. Afterwards, they arrested a driver of Shater.
“They tried beating us, but when they failed, they started firing at us,” he said.
“If the Muslim Brotherhood had any militias, this wouldn’t have had happened,” Shater said, dismissing allegations that the Islamist movement was violent and that he his father was the one ruling Egypt.
Shater’s whereabouts were not immediately known. He is widely regarded as the strongest personality in the Islamist movement, but who was barred from running for president last year because he had been jailed under toppled ex-President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian rule.
The incident occurred on a day when the armed forces issued an ultimatum to Islamist President Mohammed Mursi to agree within 48 hours on a power-sharing consensus with opposition parties or face more direct military intervention.
(With Reuters)