Cairo: An Egyptian court on Saturday started the trial of toppled president Mohammad Mursi on charges of insulting the judiciary in a case involving 24 others including opponents of his Muslim Brotherhood group.
Mursi dismissed his trial as unconstitutional, saying the court has no jurisdiction to try him, according to witnesses.
“I respect this court but I refuse this trial,” Mursi said from inside a defendants’ cage at a makeshift courtroom in the Police Academy on the outskirts of Cairo.
“I have been brought to this place by force. No one has been allowed to visit me in the prison since the 7th of November, 2013.”
In mid-2013, the army ousted Mursi following enormous street protests against his one-year rule.
He is serving a 20-year jail term in another case connected to violence against anti-Islamist protesters.
Other defendants, who appeared in Saturday’s trial, denied insulting the judiciary in media remarks. They include Ala’a Abdul Fattah, a leading secular activist, who is serving five years in prison for violating a disputed protest ban. Abdul Fattah took part in the 2011 uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak, and was an outspoken critic of the Brotherhood’s rule.
Also indicted in the same case are controversial TV show host Tawfik Okasha and famed journalist Abdul Halim Qandil — both staunch Brotherhood opponents. The list incorporates several ex-secular and Brotherhood members of parliament as well as lawyers and journalists.
Six Islamist fugitives are being tried in absentia.
If convicted, the defendants could be imprisoned for one year and pay a maximum fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (Dh4,814).
Presiding judge of the Cairo Criminal Court Ahmad Abdul Wahab postponed the case to July 27 to allow time for defence lawyers to examine its documents, legal sources said.
Mursi is being tried in another case for alleged leaking of highly classified documents to Qatar while in power. He could face death if found guilty.
Last week, an Egyptian court gave him a preliminary death sentence on charges of a prison escape during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak.
The sentence has been referred to the country’s chief Islamic authority, the Grand Mufti, to approve or reject it. This reference is mandatory under Egyptian law in death penalty cases.
The final verdict is set for June 2.
