ElBaradei Sought West's Support For Forcibly Ousting President Morsi

Mohamed ElBaradei, said Thursday that he had worked hard to convince Western powers of what he called the necessity of forcibly ousting President Mohamed Morsi.

In an interview, Mr. ElBaradei also defended the widening arrests of Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood allies and the shutdown of Islamist television networks that followed the removal of Mr. Morsi on Wednesday by Egypt’s generals.

In tandem with the military’s ouster of Mr. Morsi, the judicial authorities replaced the attorney general he had appointed, reinstating the prosecutor installed by Hosni Mubarak, the autocratic president ousted in Egypt’s 2011 revolution.

The Mubarak appointee, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, spent years in office prosecuting Islamists.