Date: Sep 25, 2020
Source: The Daily Star
Three Egyptian policemen, four militants killed in prison break attempt
Reuters
CAIRO: Three Egyptian policemen were killed while preventing four militants on death row fleeing a Cairo prison on Wednesday, the interior ministry said.

All four militants were killed in the failed attempt to escape from Tora prison, it added in a statement.

Three of the prisoners named in the statement were convicted in 2018 with establishing and joining a militant group called Ansar al-Sharia and killing at least 10 policemen in a series of attacks between August 2013 and May 2014.

The fourth was convicted in 2018 of killing a Christian doctor, local newspapers said.

The interior ministry statement did not give further details.

Ansar al-Sharia announced its formation in Egypt in July 2013, saying the army's ousting of President Mohamed Mursi in the same month was a declaration of war on its faith and threatening to use violence to impose Islamic law.