Two members of the Muslim Brotherhood were killed in a police shootout on Monday, including a senior leader in charge of the group's "armed wing", according to a statement released by the Interior Ministry early on Tuesday.
The statement said that Mohamed Kamal, 61, a member of the group's the Guidance Bureau, and Yasser Shehata, another leader, were killed when police raided an apartment in Cairo's southern Bassateen neighbourhood that was used by the leaders as a headquarters to plan their armed attacks.
Security forces were met with gunfire from inside, prompting them to shoot back, the ministry added. It said that forces obtained a permit from the state security prosecution prior to the raid.
Kamal had been sentenced to life imprisonment in two cases in absentia for sponsoring "armed groups that attack state institutions."
Shehata was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for "assaulting a citizen and forcibly detaining him in the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice party," the Brotherhood's political arm of the organisation, the ministry added.
The Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest and most organized political group, has suffered one of the toughest crackdowns on its 88-year history following the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who hails from the group.
The group says it is a peaceful organisaton.
