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AFP
Cairo
Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi was buried on Tuesday, as calls mounted for an independent investigation into the causes of his death after he collapsed in a Cairo courtroom.
The Islamist leader, who was overthrown in 2013 after a year of divisive rule and later charged with espionage, was buried at a cemetery in eastern Cairo’s Medinat Nasr, one of his lawyers said.
Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud said family members had washed Morsi’s body and prayed the last rites at the Leeman Tora Hospital.
That lies near the prison where Egypt’s first civilian president, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member, had been held for six years in solitary confinement and deteriorating health.
The prosecutor general’s office said the 67-year-old leader had collapsed and “died as he attended a hearing” Monday over alleged collaboration with foreign powers and militant groups.
Abdel Maksoud told AFP that only around 10 family members and close Morsi confidants were present at the funeral, including himself.
A reporter saw a handful of mourners entering the cemetery complex, accompanied by police officers, but journalists were prevented from entering the site. The graveyard is in the same suburb as the largest massacre in Egypt’s modern history, the August 2013 crackdown on Islamist sit-ins at two Cairo squares, weeks after Morsi’s ouster by the military. Over 800 people were killed in a single day as security forces moved against protesters demanding Morsi’s reinstatement. The attorney general’s office said Morsi, who appeared “animated”, had addressed the court on Monday for five minutes before falling to the ground inside the defendants’ glass cage.
Another of Morsi’s lawyers, Osama El Helw, said other defendants had started banging on the glass, “screaming loudly that Morsi had died”.
The attorney general said Morsi had been “transported immediately to the hospital”, where medics pronounced him dead–a version confirmed by a judicial source.
Since Morsi’s overthrow on July 3, 2013, his former defence minister, now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has waged an ongoing crackdown that has seen thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters jailed and hundreds facing death sentences.
Thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey took to the streets of capital Ankara and Istanbul on Tuesday to mourn Morsi, with some chanting slogans blaming Cairo authorities for his death.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan condemned western countries, saying they had “watched Morsi taken down in a coup and tortured in a prison cell”.
A group of British parliamentarians in March 2018 warned that his detention conditions, particularly inadequate treatment for his diabetes and liver disease, could trigger his “premature death”.
“Sadly, we have been proved right,” said Crispin Blunt, the MP who chaired the committee, in a statement Tuesday.
Cairo
Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi was buried on Tuesday, as calls mounted for an independent investigation into the causes of his death after he collapsed in a Cairo courtroom.
The Islamist leader, who was overthrown in 2013 after a year of divisive rule and later charged with espionage, was buried at a cemetery in eastern Cairo’s Medinat Nasr, one of his lawyers said.
Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud said family members had washed Morsi’s body and prayed the last rites at the Leeman Tora Hospital.
That lies near the prison where Egypt’s first civilian president, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member, had been held for six years in solitary confinement and deteriorating health.
The prosecutor general’s office said the 67-year-old leader had collapsed and “died as he attended a hearing” Monday over alleged collaboration with foreign powers and militant groups.
Abdel Maksoud told AFP that only around 10 family members and close Morsi confidants were present at the funeral, including himself.
A reporter saw a handful of mourners entering the cemetery complex, accompanied by police officers, but journalists were prevented from entering the site. The graveyard is in the same suburb as the largest massacre in Egypt’s modern history, the August 2013 crackdown on Islamist sit-ins at two Cairo squares, weeks after Morsi’s ouster by the military. Over 800 people were killed in a single day as security forces moved against protesters demanding Morsi’s reinstatement. The attorney general’s office said Morsi, who appeared “animated”, had addressed the court on Monday for five minutes before falling to the ground inside the defendants’ glass cage.
Another of Morsi’s lawyers, Osama El Helw, said other defendants had started banging on the glass, “screaming loudly that Morsi had died”.
The attorney general said Morsi had been “transported immediately to the hospital”, where medics pronounced him dead–a version confirmed by a judicial source.
Since Morsi’s overthrow on July 3, 2013, his former defence minister, now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has waged an ongoing crackdown that has seen thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters jailed and hundreds facing death sentences.
Thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey took to the streets of capital Ankara and Istanbul on Tuesday to mourn Morsi, with some chanting slogans blaming Cairo authorities for his death.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan condemned western countries, saying they had “watched Morsi taken down in a coup and tortured in a prison cell”.
A group of British parliamentarians in March 2018 warned that his detention conditions, particularly inadequate treatment for his diabetes and liver disease, could trigger his “premature death”.
“Sadly, we have been proved right,” said Crispin Blunt, the MP who chaired the committee, in a statement Tuesday.
