CAIRO – The Freedom and Justice newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, reported that army leaders had asked Ahmed Abdel-Ati, the head of Morsi’s office, to convince the deposed leader to “abandon power and halt protests in return for releasing political prisoners”
An army spokesman has denied reports about holding talks with the head of deposed President Mohamed Morsi’s office for negotiations on the release of detained Muslim Brotherhood members.
“The Armed Forces reiterate that these reports are totally groundless,” Ahmed Mohamed Ali wrote on his Facebook page late Friday.
The Freedom and Justice newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, reported that army leaders had asked Ahmed Abdel-Ati, the head of Morsi’s office, to convince the deposed leader to “abandon power and halt protests in return for releasing political prisoners”.
The newspaper alleged that Abdel-Ati had rejected pressures of the “coup leaders to convince the elected president to resign in return for releasing him and other political prisoners”.
But the army spokesman categorically denied the claims.
“There were no meetings between army leaders and Abdel-Ati or any other body,” the spokesman said.
He said that the claims “were part of a campaign of rumors and lies against the Armed Forces to cast doubts on their national role with the aim of achieving suspicious purposes”.
The spokesman said that the Armed Forces “are fully committed by the roadmap for Egypt’s future and that the army will not abandon the gains of the June 30 revolution”.
Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was deposed by the army on July 3 after mass demonstrations against his presidency.
Under an army-imposed roadmap for post-Morsi transition, the constitution was suspended and Adly Mansour, the head of the country’s constitutional court, was installed as interim president.
The army spokesman warned that “these rumors pose a danger to security and stability of Egypt and the army” and called on the Egyptians and the media “not to pay attention to systematic campaigns that aim to raise doubts”.
