Report: 38 Muslim Brotherhood prisoners die "in disputed circumstances"

CAIRO (Reuters) - Some 38 Muslim Brotherhood supporters died in disputed circumstances at a prison on Sunday, as the leader of Egypt's powerful army warned he would not tolerate violence, urging Islamists to change course.

Latest government figures said at least 830 people had died since last Wednesday in clashes pitting followers of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi against security forces in the worst political bloodletting to rock Egypt in recent history.

Police have rounded up hundreds of Mursi's Brotherhood backers in recent days, in an effort by the army-backed government to end weeks of protests and to stamp their authority on the deeply polarized nation. The government said 70 members of the security forces were among the dead.

The Interior Ministry said a group of detainees had tried to escape from a prison on the outskirts of Cairo, adding that an undisclosed number had been suffocated by tear gas when police moved in to free an officer who had been taken hostage.

Three sources put the number of dead at 38.

Offering a very different version of events, a legal source told Reuters that men had died from asphyxiation in the back of a crammed police van while being drive to prison.

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