By Islam Mosaad
CAIRO
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said Friday that a second member had died in prison this week.
Abu Bakr al-Qadi, 64, died in prison in the Upper Egyptian province of Qena late Friday from stomach cancer, the Islamist movement said in a statement.
The group accused security agencies of refusing to move al-Qadi to hospital for treatment, leading to his death.
But a security source in the Egyptian prison authority dismissed the accusation.
"[Al-Qadi] has been receiving treatment at Assiut university hospital from stomach cancer until his death because of the disease," the source told AA.
Al-Qadi, an accountant, has been detained on incitement-to-violence charges following last year's ouster of president Mohamed Morsi by the military.
The fatality is the second this week after the Muslim Brotherhood accused prison authorities of negligence in the death of group member Tarek Ghandour in prison, a claim denied by authorities.
Since Morsi's ouster, Egypt's military-backed authorities have launched an unrelenting crackdown on dissent, which has mainly targeted Morsi's Islamist supporters.
There are no official estimates on the number of people who have been rounded up for opposing Egypt's current army-backed authorities.
However, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a local NGO, recently documented over 21,000 cases of people who had been subject to prosecution since Morsi's ouster.
The authorities accuse Morsi's supporters and Brotherhood members of sponsoring violence, while the Brotherhood accuses Egypt's army-backed authorities of killing and jailing its political opponents.
www.aa.com.tr/en
