Egypt detains eight for funding plot to ‘overthrow state’

CAIRO: Eight people have been detained by the Egyptian authorities on accusations of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and helping to fund a plot to overthrow the state, a judicial source told AFP.

Those being held included businessmen, journalists and political figures, who have been placed in temporary detention for 15 days, the source said, while Amnesty International described the "chilling" arrests as politically motivated.

The detentions came after the interior ministry said 19 businesses were raided by police on Tuesday in the capital Cairo and the cities of Alexandria and Ismaila. The raids were in response to the businesses allegedly funding a plot "intent on overthrowing the state and its institutions" this month, the interior ministry said in a statement.

They were part of a plan along with groups "claiming to represent civil political forces" which sought to carry out "violent acts and unrest against the state", it added. A total of 250 million Egyptian pounds ($15 million) was seized in the raids, according to the ministry statement.

The government did not detail the type of businesses targeted, but said they were affiliated with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. Prominent human rights lawyer Zyad el-Elaimy, who was among those arrested, was visiting a friend in Maadi, a Cairo suburb, when police detained him in the early hours of Tuesday, his mother Ekram Youssef said. "Some people grabbed him so he started shouting to his friend. He eventually cooperated with them once the friend came," she said.