Egypt's ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi sits in a defendant cage in the Police Academy courthouse in Cairo, Egypt Photo: AP/Tarek el-Gabbas
An Egyptian judge has requested the death penalty for former president Mohammed Morsi, charging him with organising a mass prison break.
The verdict will be confirmed, after consultation with Egypt’s highest religious authority, the Grand Mufti, on June 2.
Mr Morsi is already serving a 20 year sentence for inciting violence against protesters. That verdict, issued last month, was the first of six facing the former president as Egypt’s new authorities seek to ensure he can never return to the political stage.
Mr Morsi was overthrown in a popularly-backed military coup in July 2013, after a disastrous year in office. In December, a leaked recording from the office of Egypt’s new president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, appeared to reveal senior Egyptian officials debating how to forge evidence to build a stronger case against Mr Morsi.
On Saturday, at least twenty seven defendants crammed into the court’s soundproof cage to receive their verdicts. Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie and two other senior officials from the group were dressed in the red tracksuits reserved for prisoners on death row.
The verdicts handed down on Saturday related to incidents which allegedly occurred during Egypt’s 2011 anti-government uprising, as well as during Mr Morsi’s time in office.
The nature of the verdicts against other defendants was not immediately clear as chaos reigned in court.
In the first case, Mr Morsi was accused of orchestrating a mass prison break in the early days of the revolution, an act prosecutors said was coordinated with Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. In the second, the former president was one of 36 people accused of espionage “to harm the interests of Egypt”. The prosecution said Mr Morsi and his aides had passed classified information to foreign powers.
But on the eve of Saturday’s verdicts, a Muslim Brotherhood-linked television channel broadcast an audio-recording that appeared to include the courtroom testimony of a leading Mubarak regime official who denied some of the charges against Mr Morsi.
“Did the intelligence apparatus, during or before the events of January 25, 2011, spot any infiltration.. by foreign elements,” the judge asked former army chief of staff Sami Anan in the video. “No we didn’t,” he replied.
Human rights groups have accused Mr Sisi’s regime - which enjoys popular backing among Egyptians tired of years of political turmoil - of using the judiciary as a tool to repress opposition.
Since Mr Morsi’s overthrow, tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned as part of a sweeping crackdown against dissent. The Egyptian government has framed the crackdown as a necessary pillar of its fight against terrorism.
By Telegraph
The nature of the verdicts against other defendants was not immediately clear as chaos reigned in court.
In the first case, Mr Morsi was accused of orchestrating a mass prison break in the early days of the revolution, an act prosecutors said was coordinated with Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. In the second, the former president was one of 36 people accused of espionage “to harm the interests of Egypt”. The prosecution said Mr Morsi and his aides had passed classified information to foreign powers.
But on the eve of Saturday’s verdicts, a Muslim Brotherhood-linked television channel broadcast an audio-recording that appeared to include the courtroom testimony of a leading Mubarak regime official who denied some of the charges against Mr Morsi.
“Did the intelligence apparatus, during or before the events of January 25, 2011, spot any infiltration.. by foreign elements,” the judge asked former army chief of staff Sami Anan in the video. “No we didn’t,” he replied.
Human rights groups have accused Mr Sisi’s regime - which enjoys popular backing among Egyptians tired of years of political turmoil - of using the judiciary as a tool to repress opposition.
Since Mr Morsi’s overthrow, tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned as part of a sweeping crackdown against dissent. The Egyptian government has framed the crackdown as a necessary pillar of its fight against terrorism.
By Telegraph
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