Egyptian police plan raids

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 8

Egyptian police plan raids

NZPA-Reuter Cairo The Egyptian police plan a series of raids this week to arrest members of Egypt’s banned' Communist Party after discovery of a plot to overthrow President Anwar Sadat, Interior Ministry officials have said. All party members would be rounded up if there was evidence they were involved in the plot to set up a communist government in Egypt, they said. The officials declined to give any estimate of the numbers involved. The Prosecutor-General (Mr Salah Rashidi) announced at the week-end that 56 people had been arrested on Thursday in connection with the plot. They included six lawyers,

i four journalists, and a former member of Parliament, : he said. ' The Left-wing Unionist : Progressive Party, which is i legal, said in a statement : last Thursday that 23 of its • leading members had been arrested that day, including I a former Parliamentarian, ; Abul Ezz Hariri, and a lawl yer, Haroun Shehata, a ■ prominent member of the , Egyptian Jewish community. i In a speech at his Nile Delta village of Met Abul ■ Kom on Friday, President Sadat said: “Justice will be 1 administered by putting on trial members of an underI ground organisation recently ■ arrested for suspicious con- ■ tacts with some countries.” He did not name the countries.