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Morsi's defence team denies withdrawing from trial

October 13, 2014 at 12:51 pm

Members of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s defence team have denied reports that they willingly withdrew from the case against him and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In an exclusive statement made to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, lawyers Mohamed Touson and Mohamed Al-Damaty clarified that they “did not issue an official statement saying that the defence team plans on withdrawing its services despite its full belief that they are working within a corrupt system and that constitutional law is being hijacked in the court system. As such, the defence will continue to do its job starting on Monday and it will practise its legal and legitimate right to defend the accused in legal cases”.

Al-Damaty said: “The team has decided to continue its role in the defence of the [Muslim Brotherhood’s] leaders in the cases that are currently being examined by the court.”

He added: “All members of the defence team had debated the issue of whether or not to continue representing the group and they all agreed on the need to continue,” revealing at the same time that, “the Brotherhood’s leadership, many of whom are currently in prison and as such, their opinion is truly the one that matters, all emphasised the importance of continuing the case and the need for the defence team to continue to do its job.”

Recent, many have encouraged or suggested that the defence team withdraw from Morsi’s trial arguing that the defence team’s presence grants legitimacy to the Egyptian court’s verdicts.

Al-Damaty responded saying: “In the event that my team withdraws from the case, the court will then appoint two defence lawyers of its own and they will be incompetent. What this means is that the case will be closed quickly without any semblance of defence or rational judgement.” He pointed out that the current team has been working tirelessly.

“There is an evident feud between the courts and former President Mohamed Morsi and this feud developed after President Morsi announced that constitutional reforms had been made while he was still in office. The main problem was that he removed former Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud from his post”, Al-Damaty added.