Roundup: Egypt's top prosecutor dies of blast injuries

Egypt's Prosecutor General succumbed to injuries he sustained Monday in a bomb attack in Cairo, official MENA news agency reported.

Hesham Barakat, 65, was seriously wounded and underwent a delicate surgery in a Cairo hospital shortly after which he died.

The Ministry of Health said that nine other people were injured in the blast targeting the country's top prosecutor.

According to the Justice Ministry, the car bomb was detonated via remote control, noting that the strength of the blast propelled the prosecutor's vehicle quite a distance away, setting fire to it along with accompanying cars.

The assassination comes a day before the second anniversary of the June 30 mass protests which ousted former Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi by the military in July 2013.

Transpiring close to the Military Academy in the district of Heliopolis, the bombing occurred following a video posted Monday by Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis militant group, an affiliate of the Islamic State regional militant group, supposedly showing attacks in May which killed two judges and a prosecutor.

The group vowed there will be further attacks on judges in revenge for the mass life and death sentences handed down to Islamists, however no one has yet claimed responsibility for Barakat's death.

An additional blast Monday targeting road-paving equipment killed two workers and injured 14 others on a side road of the coastal Arish-Rafah highway in North Sinai, security officials and medics told Xinhua.

Earlier in June, a court sealed the death sentence against Morsi over the mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising which toppled longtime ex-leader Hosni Mubarak, in addition to delivering mass death sentences to other Brotherhood members and supporters.

Barakat referred thousands of Islamists to mass trials in criminal courts over violence charges since Morsi's dismissal.

In response to the attack, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi held an urgent meeting with Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar in order to receive the latest details of the attack, receive updates on the security situation as well as police efforts in locating the perpetrators, according to the official MENA news agency.

Abdel-Ghaffar announced the highest security threat alert ahead of the June 30 celebrations in coordination with the armed forces, noting that the Interior Ministry intensified its security presence surrounding vital state institutions as well as public services such as transportation, the metro and others.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab decided that Tuesday will officially be a holiday to mark the second anniversary of the June 30 uprising which toppled Morsi.

The Interior Ministry, the Armed Forces and the Foreign Ministry expressed their condolences, mourning the death of the country's prosecutor general on their official Facebook pages.

Judge Abdullah Fathy, head of Egypt's Judges Club, responded to Barakat's murder by saying "such aggression will neither intimidate nor terrorize judges or stop them from fully performing their stately role."

On the other hand, the Freedom and Justice Party official Facebook page belonging to the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood group said Monday that the organization denounces violence, blaming Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi for the assassination.

"The Muslim Brotherhood affirms that murder is unacceptable," the group said in a statement, criticizing the murdered prosecutor general for allegedly oppressing thousands of people.

Although the state-designated "terrorist" group consistently condemned violence in its statements, several supporters would often incite violence against government and security forces. Endit