Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi stands inside a glassed-in defendant's cage during his trial, Jan. 28, 2014.
The espionage trial of deposed Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi has been adjourned after lawyers walked out in protest of the defendants being held in a soundproof glass cage.
The overthrown Egyptian leader is facing four trials prosecuted by the new military regime. In the current one, Morsi is being charged with espionage and conspiring to commit acts of terror for collaborating with the Palestinian movement Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The trial is adjourned until Feb. 23, the BBC reports.
In the first trial which opened against him in November, Morsi is charged with inciting the killing of protestors; in the second, which opened in January, he is charged with escaping from prison in a 2011 jailbreak; the fourth trial will be on charges of insulting the judiciary.
Morsi was overthrown in a coup last July following mass street protests against his increasingly authoritarian rule, and since his ouster, the military-backed government has cracked down on his Muslim Brotherhood party, killing over a thousand people and arresting thousands more.
The deposed president has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court. He is the only freely elected leader in the Egypt’s history, but aroused widespread fury in the country last year as he sought to quickly expand his presidential authority.
[BBC]