A little over a week into his ouster and Mohamed Morsi’s past is already starting to haunt him. On Sunday, news reports said an investigation was launched into the deposed president’s escape from Wadi al-Natroun Prison in 2011, adding to the pile of charges leveled against him over the past two days.
Morsi is now being held in an undisclosed location, and judicial sources reportedly said that state security prosecution interrogated him there hours after the public prosecution received accusations that he and other Muslim Brotherhood figures spied for foreign bodies, incited the killing of protesters, and harmed the economy.
He and other leading Brotherhood figures are accused of fleeing prison during the 18-day uprising that ousted his predecessor Hosni Mubarak. Foreign elements such as Hamas and Hezbollah are implicated in the jailbreak, AFP has reported.
The case’s fate however hangs in the balance as a source at the general prosecution denied reports that an investigation into these accusations was launched, MENA reported.
Morsi had been detained on 28 January 2011, dubbed the Friday of Anger, along with 24 other Brotherhood figures. Two days later he was reportedly freed by residents of the area after prison guards abandoned their positions in prisons across the country.
Ongoing controversy over the jailbreaks of Brotherhood figures during the 2011 uprising may either tip the scales in favor of Mubarak’s Interior Ministry or work against it. At the time it was reported that police forces abandoned prisons as they simultaneously withdrew from the streets on the Friday of Anger.
According to the Interior Ministry’s side of the story, however, prisons were attacked by elements from Hamas and Hezbollah who were intent on freeing their members.
With all these accusations hanging over his head, the fact that Morsi remains held in an undisclosed location is raising human rights concerns.
The deposed president has been detained without charge since the army removed him from power on 3 July. The US State Department has called for his release and for the authorities to stop arresting other leaders of the Brotherhood.
Heba Morayef, the Human Rights Watch Egypt director, said that Morsi’s is a very straightforward situation.
“He’s being detained incommunicado, because neither he nor the 10 members of his presidential team who are also detained have been allowed to communicate with their families, or with a lawyer/to appoint a lawyer,” she explained.
She added that Morsi has not been formally charged or brought before a prosecutor, and that his detention itself is without legal basis.
Morayef said that whether the deposed president is brought before military or civilian prosecution, the prosecutor needs to order his detention or that of his team on the basis of being detained pending investigation, explaining that this was the case with Brotherhood leader Khairat al-Shater.
“The fact that this hasn’t happened makes his detention a clear violation of his right not to be arbitrarily detained,” she said.
Morayef explained that the prosecutor’s statements thus far, which say that Morsi will be investigated over a number of charges, are not “yet a formal process.”
“We’re used to seeing prosecutors throwing around a number of charges until they actually decide which ones have merit and proceeding with it,” she said.
Morayef expressed concern over the nature of the charges that might be leveled against Morsi, adding that “some of them clearly show that they are politicized charges.”
