Prosecutors send former president to new trial

Egypt's prosecutors yesterday referred to trial, the country's former Islamist president on charges of insulting the judiciary and defaming its members to spread hate, the fourth case filed against Mohammed Morsi since his July ouster, the state news agency reported.

Morsi is already facing three separate trials on various charges, including inciting the murder of his opponents, conspiring with foreign groups and organising jailbreaks - all of which can carry the death penalty. Only one case has opened and it is due to resume next month.

The new case includes 24 other politicians, media personalities, activists and lawyers, accused in separate incidents of insulting the judiciary in public, on television or on social media websites over the past three years. They include some of Egypt's prominent youth activists, including Alaa Abdel-Fattah, former lawmaker Mostafa el-Naggar, and liberal former lawmaker Amr Hamzawy as well as rights lawyer Amir Salem.

The referral also includes figures who were at odds with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, such as TV personality Tawfiq Okasha, known for lambasting revolutionary groups, the military, and the Brotherhood. The offence is punishable by up to six months in prison, a fine, or both.

Lawyer Ahmed Seif said the referral is an early test to Egypt's newly adopted charter, which bars imprisonment in libel or slander cases.

"This is putting society in a very early state of contradictions, with an article in the charter that goes against an existing law. What do we do?" Seif asked.

REGULATING PUNISHMENT

The charter states that the law should regulate the punishment if the defamation involves incitement or dishonouring individuals.

Egypt's state news agency said the referral of Morsi dates back to his time in office, when he named a judge in a public speech and accused him of bearing responsibility for fraud carried out in previous elections. At the time, the judge was presiding over a case reviewing corruption charges against former regime officials. The referral said Morsi's speech would have influenced the judge's work in the case and witnesses.

The televised speech came at the height of a tense stand-off between Morsi and the core of Egypt's over 13,000 judges and prosecutors, who accused the Islamist president and his Muslim Brotherhood group of meddling in their affairs and seeking to replace judges with their loyalists.

- AP