A masked protester stands in a cloud of tear gas during clashes with security forces dispersing several hundred pro- ousted President Mohammed Morsi university students who were rallying near Rabaah el-Adawiya, in eastern Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. As the protest got underway, army troops and police backed by armored vehicles blocked off the road leading to the site, creating a tense stand-off that lasted hours. By late afternoon, the students retreated to their campus, while pelting security forces with rocks.(AP Photo/Said Hamdy) (The Associated Press)
CAIRO – Egypt's Interior Ministry says a key figure in the Muslim Brotherhood has been arrested after months on the run.
The ministry says Essam el-Erian, the deputy leader of the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, was apprehended in the early hours Wednesday in an apartment in an eastern Cairo suburb.
El-Erian is one of the few senior Islamist figures still on the run.
The media-savvy el-Erian was among the group's more moderate figures but turned hard-line and went into hiding after the July 3 coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the same group.
Egypt's new, military-backed authorities have cracked down on the group, arresting hundreds of Brotherhood figures and putting top leaders on trial on charges of inciting violence and murder.
Fox News' "Antisemitism Exposed" newsletter brings you stories on the rising anti-Jewish prejudice across the U.S. and the world.