Ousted Egypt’s Islamist president Mursi dies in court

Former Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi, ousted by the military in 2013 after one year in office, died on Monday after collapsing in a Cairo court while on trial on espionage charges.

Mursi, a top figure in the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, and the first democratically elected head of state in Egypt‘s modern historyhad been in jail since being toppled by the military in 2013 after barely a year in power following mass protests against his rule.

The 67-year-old Morsi had just addressed the court, speaking from the glass cage he is kept in during sessions and warning that he had "many secrets" he could reveal, a judicial official said. A few minutes afterward, he collapsed in the cage, an official said.

The public prosecutor said he had collapsed in a defendants’ cage in the courtroom shortly after speaking, and had been pronounced dead in hospital at 4:50 p.m. It said an autopsy had shown no signs of recent injury on his body.

State TV said the cause of death was a heart attack.

Morsi, who was 67, had been in custody since his removal after mass protests.

The Muslim Brotherhood said the death was a "full-fledged murder".

Activists and his family had long said Morsi was not receiving treatment for serious health problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and was constantly being held in solitary confinement.

After decades of repression under Egyptian autocrats, the Brotherhood won a parliamentary election after a popular uprising toppled Mubarak and his military-backed establishment in 2011.

Mursi was elected to power in 2012 in Egypt‘s first free presidential election, having been thrown into the race at the last moment by the disqualification on a technicality of millionaire businessman Khairat al-Shater, by far the Brotherhood’s preferred choice.

His victory marked a radical break with the military men who had provided every Egyptian leader since the overthrow of the monarchy in 1952.

Mursi promised a moderate Islamist agenda to steer Egypt into a new democratic era where autocracy would be replaced by transparent government that respected human rights and revived the fortunes of a powerful Arab state long in decline.

But the euphoria that greeted the end of an era of presidents who ruled like pharaohs did not last long.

The stocky, bespectacled man, born in 1951 in the dying days of the monarchy, told Egyptians he would deliver an “Egyptian renaissance with an Islamic foundation”.

Instead, he alienated millions who accused him of usurping unlimited powers, imposing the Brotherhood’s conservative brand of Islam and mismanaging the economy, all of which he denied.

Security sources said the Interior Ministry had declared a state of alert on Monday, notably in Mursi’s home province of Sharqiya in the Nile Delta, where the body was expected to be taken for burial.

Reuters, BBC and Yahoo News

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