CAIRO, Jul 31 (Aswat Masriya) – The Cairo Criminal Court adjourned on Sunday the trial of 67 defendants accused of assassinating late prosecutor general Hisham Barakat to Aug 16.

Out of the 67 defendants, 51 are in jail while the rest are still at large.

The court postponed the trial to continue examining the exhibits. 

Barakat was killed on June 29, 2015 after a bomb targeted his motorcade. His assassination made him the most senior state official killed since militant attacks surged in Egypt in mid-2013.

The court ordered a media gag on his case in June. The gag order prohibits the publication of all information, papers, documents and investigations related to the case with exception of material the court examines during trials.

The prosecution accused the defendants of manufacturing and possessing explosives and using them to endanger people’s lives, as well as acquisition of weapons and ammunition intended for use in criminal activities.

The prosecution referred the defendants to court last May. The referral order was accompanied with detailed confessions from 45 out of the 67 defendants, according to a statement by the prosecution then.

Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar accused in March Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood group of having planned and implemented the assassination.

Abdel Ghaffar said then that the Brotherhood member Yehia Moussa issued the decision to kill Barakat. Moussa is a fugitive in Turkey. He was the spokesman of the health ministry during the rule of ousted president Mohamed Mursi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood and who was overthrown by the military in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

According to Abdel Ghaffar, Moussa had led a group of Brotherhood members in Egypt to commit a number of other operations.  

He added that a Hamas member in Gaza was involved in the assassination.

Egypt listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation in December 2013 and insists it is behind the wave of militancy which has targeted security personnel since July 2013. The Brotherhood continuously denies the accusations.

Egyptian authorities have also accused Hamas, a strong ally of Mursi's regime, of supporting these militant attacks but Hamas has repeatedly denied the accusations.