MORSI FACES ADDITIONAL TRIAL FOR COLLABORATING WITH FOREIGN ORGANISATIONS

         Cairo, 15 Safar 1435/18 December 2013 (MINA) – Ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi will stand additional trial over accusations he collaborated with Hamas, Hezbollah and other organisations “to commit terrorist acts” in Egypt, judicial sources told Ahram Online.

         Prosecutor General on its statement accused Morsi with thirty five detainees, including prominent members of Muslim Brotherhood and former presidential advisers, for  “revealing defence secrets to a foreign country, funding terrorists and military training to achieve the purposes of the international organisation of the Brotherhood,” Egypt’s Ahram reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

         The statement added the accusations as saying “Brotherhood leaders collaborated with Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Lebanese group Hezbollah and other organisations ‘inside and outside’ Egypt to smuggle arms, organised military training for group members in the Gaza Strip, and funded a plan to stir chaos and threaten national security in Egypt.”

         Prosecutors also accuse the group of sponsoring ‘terrorist attacks’ on army and police in the Sinai Peninsula.

          Nineteen defendants are already being detained and prosecutors have ordered the arrest of the seventeen others, the statement added.

          Among Morsi’s co-defendants are Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, his two deputies Khairat El-Shater and Mahmoud Ezzat, and prominent members Saad El-Katatni, Essam El-Erian and Mahmoud El-Beltagy. Former presidential aide Refaa El-Tahtawy along with his two deputies are also on the trial.

         The statement added that Morsi presidential aides, including Essam El-Haddad, his national security advisor, had ‘divulged secret report’ to the Brotherhood international organisation, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah in return for their cooperation.

          Morsi, the first democratically elected president in Egypt ousted by its military on July 3, 2013 followed by a anti-coup protest until now. Since the coup, the Morsi held under military tight security and accused in his first trial over killing of demonstrators in front of the presidential palace in 2012. (T/P03/E1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)