Cairo: Thirty-six Muslim Brotherhood prisoners were killed in Egypt on Sunday during an attempted prison break, the official MENA news agency reported.
"A security official has confirmed that 36 Muslim Brotherhood elements were killed during an attempt to escape," the agency reported.
The men, believed to be supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood party, were killed while being transferred to Abu Zaabal prison near Cairo in a convoy of about 600 detainees, sources told Al Jazeera.
The Egyptian MENA news agency further said that the van transporting the men pulled over and was attacked by armed gunmen. It reported that the prisoners took a police officer hostage in an attempt to escape but were killed in a shootout, not by tear gas as claimed by the government.
However, Al Jazeera was told another version of events by a source who said the prisoners staged a fight and then took a police officer hostage when the van pulled over. Other police then fired into the van, killing those inside.
Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Cairo, quoted a source who said the men had been arrested at the end of a siege at Cairo's Fateh mosque on Saturday. More than 200 people were said to have been arrested there on various charges including "terrorism".
In a statement on Sunday, the Anti-Coup Alliance said it had "obtained evidence of the assassination of at least 38 anti-coup detainees in a truck transferring them to Abu Zaabal prison".
"They were reportedly assassinated in their truck with live ammunition and tear gas fired from windows."
Abu Zabaal was the scene of a mass breakout of prisoners in 2011 as police abandoned their posts during protests against the former president Hosni Mubarak.
The group said it "puts full criminal responsibility on leaders of the 3rd of July coup, beginning with Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, [Egypt's army chief], and Minister of Interior Muhammad Ibrahim Kamel."
In the statement, the Anti-Coup Alliance demanded "an international investigation into this horrific crime, in addition to other crimes committed by leaders of the 3rd of July coup".
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