Saad al-Shater, the son of leading Muslim Brother Khairat al-Shater, said on Monday that policemen are firing shots at the businessman’s family residence. Shater was in the running for president before a court invalidated him for having a parent who is a US citizen. Khairat al-Shater is considered savvy and one of the brains behind the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood. His arrest will likely send shockwaves across the political landscape.
“The police is downstairs and is shooting at our house,” Shater’s son said in a post on his Twitter account a short while ago.
The influential businessman’s residence is located in Nasr City, Cairo Egypt.
More details on what happened at the Shater residence below from a breaking reuters story which just hit the wire moments ago.
CAIRO, July 1 (Reuters) – Egyptian security forces arrested 15 armed bodyguards of senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater on Monday after an exchange of fire in which no one was injured, security sources said.
Shater’s family telephoned Al Jazeera television station to report that his home was under police attack.
The sources said security forces were involved in an exchange of fire with the guards after going to arrest them for alleged unlawful possession of firearms.
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 authoritian rule.
The incident occurred on a day when the armed forces issued an ultimatum to Islamist President Mohamed Mursi to agree within 48 hours on a power-sharing consensus with opposition parties or face more direct military intervention. (Reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Asmaa Alsharif; Writing by Paul Taylor)
