Egypt's state prosecutor dies following bomb attack on convoy

Egyptian Attorney General Hisham Barakat has died in hospital after his convoy was attacked in Heliopolis district of the capital Cairo on Monday.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab & agencies

29 June, 2015

The convoy was attacked driving through residential area in Cairo [al-Araby al-Jadeed]

Hisham Barakat, the Egyptian Attorney General has died in Cairo after his convoy came under attack on Monday.

A car bomb struck his convoy as it was leaving his home in Cairo on Monday, in a high-profile attack against the judiciary, security and judicial sources said.


	The car bomb also wounded 2 civilians (al-Araby al-Jadeed)

The sources initially said a car bomber had rammed into the convoy but later said it seemed the car bomb had been remotely detonated in an attack which also wounded two civilians and two policemen.

But local media reported that Hisham Barakat was injured by flying glass in a bombing, which targeted his convoy while driving through the up-market residential district of Heliopolis in Cairo, outside a military academy.

Medical sources earlier told al-Araby al-Jadeed’s Arabic service that Barakat was in “critical condition” and doctors were performing lifesaving surgery on him.

“The state prosecutor has internal bleeding and his blood haemoglobin percentage has dropped from 17 to seven percent.

Doctors had to resuscitated his heart after it stopped beating,” the sources added.

A little-known group calling itself the "Giza Popular Resistance" claimed responsibility on its Facebook page. The group posted pictures that it claimed were from the attack.


	Several cars were heavily damaged (al-Araby al-Jadeed)

Al-Araby al-Jadeed could not verify the authenticity of the pictures or the claims.

Video footage of the scene of attack showed fire fighters putting out fires in several heavily damaged cars.

The bombing came after the Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt called for attacks on the judiciary following the hanging of six alleged militants.

Militants in the Sinai Peninsula, where the extremists are based, had shot dead two judges and a prosecutor in May.

Barakat was appointed prosecutor-general by Egypt's then interim-president Adly Mansour in July 2013, shortly after the military ousted the country's first freely-elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

Barakat has referred thousands of Islamists to trial since his appointment, with hundreds then sentenced to death