Ousted Egyptian leader defiant in new trial
Print Edition
Egypt’s toppled President Mohammed Morsi appeared at a new trial yesterday wearing a white prison uniform in soundproof glass-encased metal cage, pacing and shouting angrily at the judge in apparent disbelief: “Who are you? Tell me!”
In a half hour of recorded footage aired on state television, Morsi protested being in a cage for his trial on charges related to prison breaks in 2011, yelling: “Do you know where I am?”
The trial coincides with the third anniversary of one of the most violent days of Egypt’s revolution that year that broke the country’s police force and caused it to abandon patrolling the country’s streets.
Morsi supporters clashed with police yesterday in central Cairo as gunmen killed an aide to the country’s interior minister.
The former president, ousted in a July 3 coup, also declared to the judges that he remains Egypt’s legitimate leader during an unaired portion of the hearing, a state television reporter inside the courtroom said.
In aired footage, defendants chanted that their trial was “invalid.” Earlier, the defendants turned their back to the court to protest their prosecution, the state television journalist said.
Morsi raised his hands in the air and angrily questioned why he was in the court. Judge Shabaan el-Shami responded: “I am the head of Egypt’s criminal court!”
Morsi paced in a metal cell separated from other defendants.
This is the second time Morsi has appeared in court since the coup. At his first appearance in November, Morsi wore a trim, dark suit and appeared far less agitated, though he interrupted the judge and gave long speeches.
Authorities apparently resorted to the glass-encased cage to muffle the defendants’ outbursts, which have disrupted the previous hearing. The judge controls the microphone to the cage.
Morsi already faces three other trials on various charges, some of them carrying the death penalty.
Yesterday’s case is rooted in the 2011 escape of more than 20,000 inmates from Egyptian prisons, including Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood members, during the early days of the 18-day uprising against ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi and the other Brotherhood leaders were detained as Mubarak’s security tried to undercut the planned protests.
At the time, authorities also cut off Internet access and mobile phones networks for four days, crippling communication between protesters and the outside world.
In court yesterday, 19 other defendants appeared with Morsi. Another 110 defendants, including members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are being tried in absentia.
Authorities have said the jailbreaks were part of an organized effort to destabilize the country. Rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the chaotic events, saying they hold the police responsible for the pandemonium.
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