Egyptian Government Admits Killing Islamists in Custody.

Egyptian Government Admits Killing Islamists in Custody.(GlobeAndMail).

The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces killed 36 Islamists in its custody Sunday, as the military leaders and the country’s Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt’s future.

The news of the deaths came on a day in which there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in recent days, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces. The Islamists took measures Sunday to avoid confrontations, including canceling several protests over the ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.
While confirming the killings of the detainees Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners.
But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations,” and said the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of the locked prison van.
The government offered conflicting details throughout the day, once saying the detainees had suffocated to death in the van from tear gas to suppress an escape attempt, but later insisting the Islamists died in a prison where they were taken.
In either case, the incident was the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time those killed were in government custody at the time.Read the full story here.

Related: Middle East Today: Egypt — How Did 36 Anti-Regime Prisoners Die?