Contact Us

Ousted Egyptian President Morsi passes away during court session

Egypt's state TV says the country's ousted President Mohammed Morsi has collapsed during a court session and died. The state TV says the 67-year-old Morsi was attending a session Monday in his trial on espionage charges when he blacked out and then died. His body was taken to a hospital, it said.

Agencies and A News WORLD
Published June 17,2019
Subscribe

Former Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi has died in court, state television reported on Monday.

It said Mursi had fainted after a court session and died afterwards.

Mursi, a top figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, was toppled by the military in 2013 after mass protests against this rule.



He had been serving a seven-year sentence for falsifying his candidacy application for the 2012 presidential race.

There were six criminal charges against the former leader including, jailbreak, murder, spying for Qatar, spying for Hamas and Hezbollah, insulting the judiciary and involvement in terrorism.

The former president was given at least one lifetime sentence and was added to Egypt's official list of "terrorists".

The court was expected to issue final rulings in two other cases against Morsi later this year.

In 2015, he received a death sentence for escaping from prison during Egypt's 2011 popular uprising.

And then was convicted of "spying" for the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, for which he was sentenced to life behind bars.

But in 2016, Egypt's highest appellate court, overruled the verdicts and ordered two separate retrials.

Morsi, along with several defendants from his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, also stood accused of "breaching" Egypt's eastern borderer -- allegedly in cooperation with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Former President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime was brought down by the 2011 uprising, sparked controversy last December when he gave testimony that 800 Hamas gunmen snuck into Egypt during the uprising and helped break Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas members out of jail-claims the groups deny.

In 2016, the Court of Cassation also upheld a 20-year jail term against Morsi for the murders of protesters in clashes that erupted outside the presidential palace during Morsi's single year in power.

He was slapped with a life sentence for "spying" for Qatar, along with three years behind bars for "offending Egypt's judiciary."

Since Morsi's ouster in mid-2013, Egypt's post-coup authorities have waged a relentless crackdown on dissent, killing hundreds of the former president's supporters and throwing thousands in jail on "violence" charges.

What's more, shortly after the coup, the Muslim Brotherhood was officially designated a "terrorist organization."

Morsi and his co-defendants denied the charges they describe as "politically-motivated."