Egypt arrests two suspects in Cairo nightclub attack

Egyptian police have arrested two of the suspects in a nightclub firebombing attack that killed at least 16 people in Cairo, officials have said.

The Interior Ministry said on Saturday that two admitted that they had thrown Molotov cocktails at the nightclub in Cairo’s Agouza district early on Friday in revenge for having been refused entry earlier.

The two Cairo residents, an 18-year old student and a 19-year-old mechanic, were arrested in Suez province on the Red Sea coast after fleeing the city.

On Friday, Interior Ministry spokesman Abu Bakr Abdel-Karim said police were searching for six suspects.

Read more: Firebomb kills 16 at Cairo nightclub

After two of them were refused entry to the El Sayad restaurant and club, they “went and drank alcohol somewhere else,” then brought four others with them, arriving on three motorcycles about 6am, Abdel-Karim was quoted as saying by the AP news agency.

“They then threw a Molotov cocktail at the entrance of the place,” he said.

“This caused the fire and the smoke and the 16 deaths.”

Eleven men and five women died in the attack, and three people were injured.

The victims all died of suffocation, Abdel-Karim said, with people trapped inside because the fire was located at the only entrance to the club.

The nightclub was in a basement, offering no escape route, officials said.