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Egyptian police officer shot dead in clashes with Morsi supporters

16 June 2014 20:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. An Egyptian policeman was shot dead on Monday in clashes with Islamist supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The statement said the killed police officer was part of a team sent to arrest five wanted members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, in Tibeen area in the southern outskirts of Cairo.

The ministry said the five have been accused of attacking policemen.

It also said that the five started to shoot the policy when they were trying to arrest them, and a police officer was shot dead in the shoot out.

Since Morsi's removal by the military last July over major protests, his supporters have been regularly staging such protests despite a massive security crackdown that left about 1,000 killed and thousands of others arrested over the past 10 months.

But recently, pro-Morsi protests are diminishing due to mounting security measures in the country.

Ex-military chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who led Morsi's removal, was elected president late last month. The new president won nearly 97 percent of votes in a landslide victory against his sole rival leftist Hamdeen Sabahy in a three-day election.