Cairo – An Egyptian court adjourned a case against former president Mohamed Morsi until March 29 on Sunday, during the first session of his retrial over orchestrating a prison escape during the 2011 uprising.
The case includes 26 other defendants; some of them are members of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group.
They face charges of premeditated and attempted murder as well as helping up to 20,000 people escape prison, including members of the brotherhood, the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group.
During Sunday’s session, Morsi rejected the court’s proceedings, telling the judge, “I am still the president,” according to the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper.
In July 2015, a criminal court had handed Morsi and other senior brotherhood members death sentences, and sentenced 20 others to life in prison in the same case. In November, Egypt’s top appeals court overturned the sentences.
Morsi and other brotherhood leaders were among thousands of prisoners freed in disputed circumstances during the chaos of the 2011 uprising, which toppled longtime president Hosny Mubarak. They had been arrested shortly after protests against Mubarak broke out.
Morsi faces another trial on charges of leaking state secrets to the Palestinian faction Hamas and coordinating with jihadist groups inside and outside Egypt to carry out terrorist operations.
The charges were brought after the military, then headed by current President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, deposed Morsi in July 2013 following mass protests that demanded his removal.
-dpa
