Bombing leaves five wounded in northern Egypt

At least five people have reportedly sustained injuries in a car bomb attack targeting the premises of a court in Egypt’s northern province of Beheira, Press TV reports.

Egyptian authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a car rigged with explosives exploded close to the court in the town of Beheira’s Itay el-Baroud, situated 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of the capital, Cairo, early on Tuesday.

The court is where dozens of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood members have stood trial over the past few months.

Judicial sources confirmed that the explosion did not inflict any damage on the court building.

Elsewhere in Egypt’s northern town of Faqus, unidentified assailants stormed a security checkpoint on Tuesday morning, injuring a policeman. The attackers later fled the scene onboard a motorcycle.

Sources, speaking anonymously, said security personnel lave launched an operation to hunt down the gunmen.

Moreover, miscreants bombed a number of drinking water pipes in Abu Kabir city of Sharqia Province, situated approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of Cairo in the early hours of Tuesday. The break in the water lines shut off water supplies to several neighborhoods.

Death in Egyptian custody

Meanwhile, the family of political dissident Essam Hamed has confirmed his death in prison, adding that his body has been shifted to Cairo’s main morgue of Zeinhom.

Hamed’s family said the 50-year-old, who was imprisoned in the heavily-fortified Wadi el-Natrun detention facility in Beheira Province, north of Cairo, died of what they termed as “deliberate medical negligence.” They accused prison authorities of refusing medication or treatment for Hamed.

It is understood that officials at Wadi el-Natrun prison had at times turned down requests to transfer Hamed, who was apparently suffering from a number of chronic diseases, to a specialized hospital.

Security forces had detained Hamed at the site of a pro-Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in the old town of Giza, located some 25 km (15 miles) southwest in August 2013, and kept him in detention without trial or charge.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former head of the armed forces, has resorted to a heavy-handed crackdown on the supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi, who was toppled in a July 2013 military coup.

Hundreds of people, including Morsi, have been sentenced to death in speedy mass trials described by the United Nations as “unprecedented in recent history.”

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