Morsi has been buried; how poor jail condition led to his death at 67

Late Mohammed Morsi

Morsi has been buried; how poor jail condition led to his death at 67

Bad condition of Mohammed Morsi’s jail may have led to the serious complications that resulted in his death on Monday, a report has said.

The late president had a history of health issues, including diabetes and liver and kidney disease.

He also suffered from medical neglect during his imprisonment, compounded by the poor conditions in jail.

The Egypt’s first democratically elected president and Islamist leader was buried under heavy security early on Tuesday, a day after his dramatic collapse and death inside a Cairo courtroom, his family and a member of his defense team said.

Morsi’s family attended funeral prayers in the mosque of Cairo’s Tora prison, followed by the burial at a cemetery in the Egyptian capital’s eastern district of Nasr City, said Abdul-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud, a member of Morsi’s defense team.

Morsi’s son Ahmed said security agencies refused to allow Morsi to be buried at the family’s cemetery in his hometown in Sharqia province, and instead had him interred at a Cairo cemetery dedicated to prominent Islamists.

Morsi, 67, hailed from Egypt’s largest Islamist group, the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and was elected president in 2012 in the country’s first free elections following the ouster the year before of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak

The former president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, has died after appearing in court in Cairo, AL JAZEERA has reported quoting state media.

 “He was speaking before the judge for 20 minutes then became very animated and fainted. He was quickly rushed to the hospital where he later died,” a judicial source said.

Mr Morsi became the country’s first democratically elected president in 2012, one year after the Arab Spring uprising led to the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s administration.

Mr Mubarak was in power for about 30 years.

Mr Morsi was deposed in July 2013 following mass protests and a military coup led by the current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The former president was subsequently arrested.

Mr Morsi was elected to serve for four years was in power for only one year.

His organisation, Muslim Brotherhood, has since been proscribed.

The late president was facing at least six trials.

Al Jazeera reports that Mr Morsi was behind bars for nearly six years and serving a 20-year prison sentence for a conviction arising from the killing of protesters during demonstrations in 2012.

He was also serving a life sentence for espionage in a case related to the Gulf state of Qatar.

Other charges against the former leader include jailbreak, insulting the judiciary and involvement in “terrorism”.

In November 2016, the Court of Cassation scrapped the life imprisonment sentence for Morsi and 21 other defendants, including some who had received the death penalty in the same case, and ordered a retrial.