A spokesman for the Justice Ministry, Adel Saeed, said the men had been arrested by the police on Monday "for throwing Molotov cocktails from atop the A.U.C. building" approximate Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egyptian protest. The university has a university close the square with several cheap buildings; the chief college creating had been accustom at government forces during the revolutionary combats in the square in February.
After contacting their families, the university identified the students as Gregory Porter, 19, of Glenside, Pa.; Luke Gates, 21, of Bloomington, Ind.; and Derrik Sweeney, 20, of Jefferson City, Mo.
Messages posted over the weekend apt a Twitter list under the label of Luke Gates and with references to the American University in Cairo and a picture resembling 1 of the caught men included several messages narrated to the protest. One information read: "yeah live ammunition we have the shells, i was here!!" and comprised a interlock to a news report above fatal avenue clashes. Another message was: "we were throwing rocks and 1 guy deliberately threw his call."
The men were studying abroad for the semester and were scheduled to return to the United States at the end of this term, said a spokeswoman for the American University in Cairo, Morgan Roth.
As of Tuesday p.m. regional period, the males remained in police custody, the department spokesman said. "We are waiting because them to be transferred to the prosecutors bureau," he added. "A lawyer from the consulate is with them immediately."
The United States Embassy in Cairo said namely it was "incapable to confirm reports of detention of anyone characteristic American inhabitant" but that it was investigating "entire reports."
The Egyptian state broadcaster, Nile television, showed police video of the men standing against a wall in front of a table displaying bottles fraught with colored fluid identified as firebombs by with several identification cards and by least one Indiana drivers authorization said to belong to one of the men.
The arrests of the three Americans came as deadly street clashes among security forces and protesters stretched into a fourth daytime, with hundreds of thousands of human converging on Tahrir Square to voice their opposition to the military-led administration.