CAIRO, Aug 30 (Aswat Masriya) - The Cairo Criminal Court lifted on Tuesday the media gag imposed on the case of the assassination of late prosecutor general Hisham Barakat and postponed the trial to Sept. 17.

The court had ordered the media gag last June, prohibiting the publication of all information, papers, documents and investigation related to the case with the exception of material the court examines during trials.

The case involves 67 defendants, 51 of whom are in jail.

They face accusations 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.

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.

Last March, Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar accused Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, and the now-banned 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.