Reuters/Cairo

Egypt’s public prosecutor yesterday ordered the arrest of the leaders of ousted president Mohamed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, charging them with inciting violence in a clash that saw troops shoot dozens of his supporters dead.

A week after the army toppled Egypt’s first democratically-elected leader, bloodshed has opened deep fissures in the Arab world’s most populous country, with bitterness at levels unseen in its modern history.

Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said the announcement of charges against leader Mohamed Badie and several other senior Islamists was a bid by authorities to break up a vigil by thousands of Mursi supporters demanding his reinstatement.

This week’s unrest has alarmed Western donors and Israel, which has a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Washington, treading a careful line, has neither welcomed Mursi’s removal nor denounced it as a “coup”. Under US law, a coup would require it to halt aid, including the $1.3bn it gives the army each year.

The Brotherhood leaders were charged with inciting violence in Monday’s shootings, which began before dawn, when the Brotherhood says its followers were peacefully praying. The army says “terrorists” provoked the shooting by attacking its troops.

According to security sources, 57 people died including 53 protesters and four members of the security forces.

Haddad said the Brotherhood leaders had not been arrested and some were still attending the protest vigil at Rabaa Adawiya mosque. The charges against them were “nothing more than an attempt by the police state to dismantle the Rabaa protest”.

“What can we do?” he asked. “In a police state, when the police force are criminals, the judiciary are traitors and the investigators are the fabricators, what can one do?”

In addition to Badie, prosecutors ordered the arrest of others including his deputy, Mahmoud Ezzat, and outspoken party leaders Essam El-Erian and Mohamed El-Beltagi. Khairat El-Shater, another senior leader, was held last week.

The prosecutor also ordered 206 Brotherhood activists arrested after Monday’s violence to be detained for a further 15 days on accusations of involvement in the killings. It released 464 others who had been detained, on bail of about $300 each.

Meanwhile, Kuwait has promised Egypt $4bn in cash, loans and fuel, a day after Saudi Arabia pledged $5bn and the UAE offered $3bn.