Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi died on Monday shortly after collapsing in a Cairo court while on trial on espionage charges. The 67-year-old Morsi, who was the first democratically elected president in Egypt’s modern history, had been in jail since the military ousted him in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
The public prosecutor informed that Morsi had collapsed in a defendants’ cage in the courtroom shortly after addressing the court, and had been pronounced dead in hospital at 4:50 p.m. It said initial checks had shown no signs of recent injury on his body.
According to the BBC, the former leader had been buried in eastern Cairo early on Tuesday morning with his family present.
Morsi’s son, Abdullah Mohamed Morsi, confirmed the news on his Facebook page on Tuesday, saying his father has been buried alongside other senior figures of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo. The burial was attended by the family members in Cairo’s Nasr City. Notably, the authorities had refused burial in Morsi’s home province of Sharqiya in the Nile Delta.
“We washed his noble body at Tora prison hospital, read prayers for him at the prison hospital … and the burial was at the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guides,” Ahmed wrote in his Facebook post.
Morsi’s lawyer, Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud, confirmed the burial took place in the public cemetery early on Tuesday.
The former president’s death is likely to pile up international pressure on the Egyptian government over its human rights record. It is already under question over the conditions in prisons where thousands of Islamists and secular activists are held.
The Muslim Brotherhood described Mursi’s death as a full-fledged murder. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division and Amnesty International has called for an investigation into the death.
