Mohamed Morsi: Six Years After Coup, Egypt’s First Democratically Elected President Dies in Court

June 18, 2019

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, 67, died Monday after collapsing while in a glass cage inside a Cairo courtroom. The Muslim Brotherhood leader was elected in 2012 in Egypt’s first, and still only, democratic election. He was overthrown a year later in a military coup led by Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Morsi’s death comes as el-Sisi continues to jail tens of thousands of people in what the Associated Press has described as the heaviest crackdown on dissent in Egypt’s modern history. In his final comments, Morsi insisted he was still Egypt’s legitimate president. Morsi spent the last six years of his life in jail, including extended periods in solitary confinement. His family and global human rights groups often denounced the poor conditions and Morsi’s treatment in jail, arguing he had been deprived of much-needed healthcare. Morsi was buried in Cairo earlier today. We speak with Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent and a reporter with Mada Masr, an independent media outlet in Cairo.

Read more at https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/18/egypt_mohamed_morsi_dead_at_67