The arrest of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) heavyweights including the group's former spokesperson, Mahmud Ghuzlan, the so-called MB mufti, Abdel Rahman Al-Bar and others was based on tip-offs given by other MB affiliates, police sources told Al-Bawaba Newspaper Wednesday. Confessions made by MB Guidance Bureau member Mohamed Wahdan, detained May 28, helped police determine the hideout of the arrestees, police said. Following the dispersal of Rabia and El Nahda sit-ins Aug. 2013, MB fugitives were mostly hiding in remote Cairo suburbs like October 6th and Ramadan 10th cities, Wahdan told the police. A digital database that belongs to Ghuzlan's son, arrested April 19 on violence-related charges committed at the Cairo University, helped police determine his father's whereabouts. Ghuzlan's brother also informed the police against his brother's hideout allegedly in order to get a flat based in October 6th city, estimated at 2 million Egyptian pounds, according to police. Sources at Interior Ministry-linked information sector said they also tracked a phone call and WatsApp messages between Ghuzlan and his wife. On Monday night, police forces, backed by national security squad, arrested Ghuzlan, Al-Bar and others in possession of 500,000 USD, radios and satellite phones while holding a secret meeting. Plans to assassinate interior ministry officials as well as national security officers across the country were confiscated during the arrest, police said. The assassination plans included detonating, shooting and stabbing officials to break the security siege imposed on the group since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi July 2013. The MB group was designated Sept. 2013 as terrorist following a series of deadly blasts claiming hundreds of lives among security personnel and civilians, mostly in the restive Sinai Peninsula.
