Egypt’s
deposed president Mohamed Morsi went on trial Tuesday on charges of breaking
out of prison during the 2011 uprising against veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Morsi,
ousted by the army in July, is already on trial for inciting the killings of
opposition activists during his presidency and faces two other trials that have
yet to begin.
Official
news agency MENA said the trial had commenced, but did not say whether Morsi
was present in the dock.
An
AFP correspondent present in the courtroom was unable to communicate as
authorities had taken away the mobile phones of reporters covering the
proceedings.
Until
now, Morsi has only been brought to court once, for the first hearing on
November 4 over the killings of opposition activists.
He
is being tried with 130 others, including members of his banned Muslim
Brotherhood, the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite
militant group Hezbollah.
The
trial is being held under tight security in a makeshift courtroom inside a
police academy on the outskirts of Cairo.
The
Islamist leader was deposed following massive popular protests against his
one-year rule.
He
also faces charges of espionage involving Hamas, with that trial due to open on
February 16, and for insulting the judiciary, for which a date has yet to be
set.
Tuesday’s
hearing comes a day after the powerful military gave its backing to army chief
Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to run for the presidency after he led the
ouster of Morsi — Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
The
trial is part of a relentless government crackdown on Morsi and his Islamist
supporters that has seen more than 1,400 peopled killed since he was deposed,
according to Amnesty International.
Most
of those killed have been pro-Morsi demonstrators in street clashes with police
and the former president’s opponents.
Tuesday’s
trial date is symbolic as it marks the third anniversary of the prison break.
Prosecutors
have said almost 70 of the defendants belonged to Hamas or Hezbollah and that
some of them were also accused of murdering police officers and helping
thousands to escape during the jailbreak.
Morsi
was among those who escaped from Wadi Natrun jail.(AFP)
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