The Ministry of Interior began a combat training program for police officers and soldiers assigned to guard prisons where prominent former regime officials are being held, in anticipation of potential attacks on the detainees, a ministry official said Thursday.
Brigadier General Mohamed Elewa, head of the Prison Authority’s Media and Relations Unit, said the training program aims to raise the efficiency of prison security forces to confront any internal or external attack, especially in light of information the Prison Authority had received that Mubarak regime officials may be targeted.
A number of officials who served under ousted President Hosni Mubarak are currently detained in Tora prison south of Cairo on various charges related to the exploitation of power and squandering public funds. These icons include the former president's sons Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, former People's Assembly Speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour, and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.
Mubarak is spending his detention period at the military-run International Medical Center pending a court sentence on 2 June on charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the uprising in January 2011 that forced him to step down.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
