Hamas on Tuesday condemned Egypt's arrest of one of its top officialsecurity s, calling it an "extremely dangerous" move. "We view these actions as extremely dangerous," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told reporters in Gaza, referring to the arrest of Mohammed Dababesh (Abu Radwan) at Cairo airport last week.
"When we contacted Egyptian authorities we were surprised by the procrastination and delay which could endanger the lives of our brothers like Dababesh... The Egyptian authorities have yet to justify this behaviour."
Dababesh, believed to be the head of internal security in Hamas's Gaza enclave, was "suspected of involvement in activities harmful to Egyptian state security," Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported Monday. He had tried to smuggle "a significant quantity of sophisticated telecommunications equipment."
But Barhum dismissed the allegations, saying the arrest was a "real mockery of Egyptian-Palestinian relations" and calling on Egypt to release Dababesh and other Palestinian prisoners detained in recent months.
