ISLAMABAD – New stunning revelations over the death of former EgyptianPresident Mohammad Morsi inside jail: Report
A panel of UN experts have found that the detention conditions of formerEgyptian president Mohamed Morsi may have directly led to his death inJune.
Morsi was Egypt’s first democratically elected president. He was ousted ina military coup by current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2013. He’dbeen jailed for six years until his death in a Cairo court while on trialon espionage charges, which rights groups dismissed as trumped-up andpoliticized.
A statement by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for HumanRights on Friday said the experts concluded that conditions Morsi endured”could amount to a state-sanctioned arbitrary killing.”
They said he was in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, denied medicalcare, lost vision in one eye and suffered recurrent diabetic comas.
“Dr. Morsi was held in conditions that can only be described as brutal,particularly during his five-year detention in the Tora prison complex,”the experts wrote.
“Dr. Morsi’s death after enduring those conditions could amount to astate-sanctioned arbitrary killing.”
The experts also warned that thousands more prisoners are “at severe risk”from “gross violations” in Egyptian prisons.
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Senior members of Morsi’s former government welcomed the investigation andcalled on the UN to extend its probe to include the “suspiciouscircumstances” surrounding the death of Morsi’s son Abdullah in September.
Before he died, the 25-year-old Abdullah Morsi had been in touch with theUN to formally complain about his father’s death. He reportedly died of aheart attack on September 4, and was buried next to his father in Cairo.
“Abdullah died shortly after he privately gave crucial evidence about hisfather’s death to the United Nations,” Yehia Hamed, a former minister underMorsi, said in the joint statement.
“I was in close contact with Abdullah Morsi and I am convinced that it washis very brave work with the United Nations that led to his death.”
The UN experts also warned that thousands more prisoners in Egypt wereenduring similar conditions, and their ‘health and lives’ may also be atsevere risk.
