Egypt’s prosecutor orders probe against opposition

— Egypt’s chief prosecutor ordered Thursday an investigation into the leaders of the country’s opposition after a lawyer accused them of incitement to overthrow the regime of newly elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, a prosecution official said.

The order, issued by an appointee of Morsi, is likely to aggravate political tensions that have broken into street violence, most recently surrounding the newly passed but divisive constitution.

The accusation, filed last month, alleged that Mohammed ElBaradei, a Nobel Prize laureate and former head of the U.N. nuclear agency, along with Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister, and Hamdeen Sabahi, a former presidential candidate, campaigned to seek Morsi’s overthrow.

The probe does not necessarily mean charges will be leveled but it is unusual for state prosecutors to investigate such broad charges against high profile figures. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policies.

Yara Khallaf, a spokesman for Moussa, said there were no official charges or summoning for investigation, declining to comment on the accusation.

Emad Abu Ghazi, the secretary general of the opposition party ElBaradei heads, said he had no details about the investigation but that the accusations and probe were “an indication of a tendency toward a police state and the attempt to eliminate political opponents.”

Abu Ghazi said the former regime of Mubarak dealt in the same way with the opposition. There was no immediate comment from ElBaradei or Sabahi.

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