Egypt quizzes el-Khodeiry over torture allegations

Egyptian prosecutors questioned a former lawmaker close to the Muslim Brotherhood Tuesday over claims he incited protesters to torture an alleged government agent during the 2011 uprising, judicial sources said. Mahmoud El-Khodeiry, who is also a former appeals court judge, was arrested during the night in Egypt's second city of Alexandria. He was questioned over allegations he "incited protesters to torture a lawyer in (Cairo's) Tahrir Square whom he accused of being a state security officer," during the mass protests that led to the overthrow of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak, judicial sources said. The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, condemned Khodeiry's arrest, the latest of thousands of arrests of Islamist sympathizers since the army overthrew president Mohammed Morsi on July 3. Nearly all of the Brotherhood's top leadership has been detained and Morsi himself has been put on trial on charges of inciting the killing of protesters during his turbulent single year in power.