AGENCIES / CAIRO
Former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi died on Monday in a Cairo hospital after fainting during a session in court, judicial and security sources said.
“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.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a strong ally of the Islamist president during his brief tenure as Egypt’s leader, paid tribute to Morsi and called him a “martyr”.
The official Al-Ahram news website also reported the death of Morsi, 67, who was Egypt’s first democratically elected president but spent just one turbulent year in office after the 2011 uprising before the army toppled him in 2013.
The Islamist leader has been in prison since his ouster on trial for several cases including for spying for Iran, Qatar and militant groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He was also accused of plotting terror acts.
Since his overthrow on July 3, 2013, his former defence minister now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has waged an ongoing crackdown targeting his supporters from the Muslim Brotherhood with thousands jailed and hundreds facing death sentences.
The years following Morsi’s overthrow have seen a surge in bombings and shootings targeting security forces, particularly in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, a stronghold of the Islamic State group.
They said that Mr. Morsi’s poor health was a longstanding issue, and that there had been repeated and public warnings that lack of proper medical care in prison could lead to his death.
“His willful neglect is a case of premeditated murder,” Mohammed Sudan, a prominent Brotherhood member, told Al Araby TV.
His death was a somber milestone in Egypt’s ill-fated democratic transition after the Arab Spring in 2011.
Mr. Morsi’s election was the apex of the Arab Spring uprising and also of the Muslim Brotherhood, a 90-year-old Islamist movement founded in Egypt. Inaugurated seven years ago this month, on June 30, 2012, Mr. Morsi became the first freely elected president in Arab history and the first Islamist to occupy that role.