Report: UK ministers wrangle over Brotherhood investigation

A British government report into the Muslim Brotherhood has been delayed for several weeks as ministers clash over its findings and stall its release, the Financial Times has reported.

UK investigators reportedly reached the conclusion that the Brotherhood should not be labeled as a terrorist organisation and had found "little evidence" that Brotherhood members have been involved in terrorist activities, Whitehall sources told the Financial Times.

In April, UK Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a Whitehall investigation into whether an attack on tourists in Egypt was organised by the Brotherhood in Britain. Cameron came under a hail of criticism when it was revealed that he had appointed Sir John Jenkins, the UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia to head the review. Cameron ordered the investigation under heavy pressure from allies in the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which has banned the organisation, the Financial Times reported.

In justifying the reason for the inquiry, Home Office ministers said it was about the government “forming its own view”.

Ministers are reportedly concerned that the results will upset the UK's allies in the Middle East and have stalled its publication, the FT reported.

"Sir John will say that that Brotherhood is not a terrorist organisation. The Saudis and Emiratis will then be very upset with us," a source familiar with the report told the FT. 

Last year, when the Brotherhood's Morsi was still in power in Egypt, Cameron invited the group's international spokesman to lunch at Chequers and asked what Britain could do to support it, the Middle East Eye reported in an exclusive in April.

Following Morsi's ouster last July, at least 1,400 people have been in street clashes, and more than 15,000 thousand, many of whom are Muslim Brotherhood members or supporters, have been imprisoned. 

After the coup, the Egyptian government designated the movement a terrorist group.

Brotherhood reject fresh Egyptian security accusations

News of the delayed report release comes as the Muslim Brotherhood rejects fresh accusations from Egyptian security authorities that the group plans to sabotage the country's power facilities. 

On Sunday, the Brotherhood rejected accusations made by Egyptian security authorities that the group has formed cells to sabotage power facilities in the country. 

"We have nothing to do with the allegations made by police and army spokespersons and their allied media figures," the Brotherhood said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement came in response to an Interior Ministry statement that it had identified six Brotherhood cells plotting to sabotage power facilities in six provinces.

On Saturday, the groups denied being linked to a recent video in which a group of masked armed men vow to target policemen which appeared earlier last week.

The masked men, who flashed the four-fingered Rabaa sign, which commemorates hundreds of supporters of the ousted president killed in a bloody eastern Cairo sit-in dispersal last year, carried machine guns and said they would target policemen in the southern part of the Egyptian capital.

"We are fed up with the peacefulness of the Muslim Brotherhood," one of the masked armed men said in the video. "We are not Muslim Brotherhood anyway," the man added.

"Organisations promoting violence are mere tricks made by security agencies," the Muslim Brotherhood responded.

"The Brotherhood underline the fact that it has nothing to do with the violence it is accused of," the movement added in a statement.

The National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy, the main bloc backing Morsi, said in a statement on Friday that it rejects any form of violence or militancy. 

Morsi supporters staged protests across the country over the weekend to mark the first anniversary of two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya and Giza's Nahda squares which followed his ouster. When security forces dispersed the protests, hundreds of protesters were killed and thousands wounded.

The National Alliance said that at least 14 people were killed on Thursday and Friday when security forces broke up the commemorative protests.