Morsi-era chief prosecutor forced to retire

A disciplinary council on Saturday decided to send former prosecutor-general Talaat Ibrahim Abdullah, who served under Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi, into retirement.

“Abdullah was sent into retirement after he was convicted of ‘spying’ on his successor,” a judicial source told Anadolu Agency.

Abdullah and his assistant, Hassan Yassin, had been referred to the disciplinary council on charges of putting bugs in prosecutor-general Hesham Barakat’s office.

But the disciplinary council decided to return Abdullah’s assistant to his judicial job after if found that he had not been in Egypt when the bugs were implanted, the source said.

The case came to the surface when Barakat submitted a complaint to the Supreme Judiciary Council about the presence of bugs in his office.

Abdullah was appointed by Morsi as prosecutor-general in November 2012, but his appointment stirred up a hornet’s nest across polarized Egypt at the time.