Morsi talks for the first time about his detention

Ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has spoken for the first time about his detention, revealing that he was held in the headquarters of the Republican Guards following the 3 July coup last year. He gave the details during his court session on Saturday; he stands accused, among other things, of communicating with foreign elements.

The session was held two days after the transmission of leaked audio recordings, the authenticity of which have yet to be verified, in which officials are alleged to discuss changing the features of the military barracks in which Morsi was detained following his removal from power. The intention was to make the place appear as if it were a prison belonging to the interior ministry and thus give it legal status as a detention centre. The official prosecutor’s department in Egypt has denounced the leak tapes as fabricated and announced the start of an investigation.

According to Egyptian law, detainees should be held in one of the prisons belonging to the ministry of the interior. If formal arrest and detention procedures have not been followed, the entire case could collapse.

Morsi said that he left the Republican Guards headquarters on the afternoon of 5 July 2013. He pointed out that the head of the Republican Guards, Muhammad Zaki, came to him and told him that he should leave. “You are supposed to listen to me,” Morsi claims to have told Zaki. “But he said to me, ‘I listen to the people on the outside.’ I then realised that he was listening to the leader of the coup.”

Morsi went on to say that he boarded a plane which headed east towards the Suez Canal. “We stopped in Ataqa Mountain for a few minutes and then we headed towards Fayid Airport where we spent half an hour before going to Alexandria. I knew that I was at the headquarters of the special amphibian forces. I was detained there from 5 July to 4 November. During that period there were all sort of rumours.”

He denied media reports that he was interviewed by a journalist while in detention. “No one ever communicated with me,” he insisted, apart from prosecutor Ibrahim Salih and eight republican guards, as well as some judges, such as Tharwat Hamad accompanied by three officers.

The ousted president concluded his statement by addressing the judge: “Regrettably, I heard the prosecutor in the Ittihadiyah case say that the Minister of the Interior decided to consider a military barracks [referring to the special amphibian forces unit at Abu Qir naval base] to be a prison belonging to the ministry. I shall not give more details because I have concerns for Egyptian national security. If you truly want the truth I shall tell you that between me and you in the presence of Al-Sisi and [former army chief of staff] Sami Anan and [former defence minister] Hussein Tantawi. This does not mean that Anan and Tantawi have anything to do with the coup but they have something to do with the information. I hope that you’ll agree to a private closed session where I can tell you and history the truth about what happened and the truth about what I did for Palestine and for Egypt’s national security.”

The defence in the case started by demanding an investigation into the leaked discussions. Lawyer Muntasir Al-Zayyat submitted a CD to the court with a recording of the recent leaks and satellite photos of the naval base at Abu Qir taken before and after the alterations to make it look like a detention centre belonging to the Interior Ministry. “If it turns out that the arrest and detention procedures were not according to the law,” said Al-Zayyat, “then all of these cases [against Morsi] will consequently be null and void. The same thing would apply to the case of Ambassador Rifaah Al-Tahtawi.” According to Brigadier General Muhammad Ibrahim, noted Al-Zayyat, ex-president Morsi “was not” in an Interior Ministry prison until the beginning of the Al-Ittihadiyah case trial and its first court session on 4 November 2013.

In response, the prosecuting lawyer cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked tapes and said that the prosecutor’s office had issued a statement in which it confirmed that they were being investigated; no names were mentioned on the tapes. “Was the name of Brig. Gen. Mamduh Shahin [a member of the Military Council] mentioned?” he asked. “Was this really his voice on the audio track?” The defence would bear full responsibility if it is proven that the leaks are forgeries. Al-Zayyat told him not to try to intimidate the defence team.

In this specific case Morsi is one of 21 defendants accused of “communication with foreign elements”. All are being held in custody while the trial is taking place Apart from Morsi there are several senior officials of the Muslim Brotherhood in the dock, including the General Guide Muhammad Badei, a number of his deputies, members of the Guidance Council and Morsi’s senior advisors. A further fifteen other defendants are at large; the authorities have ordered their arrest as quickly as possible.

The “foreign elements” referred to in the case are listed as the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The defendants are accused of making contact with the intention of carrying out “subversive activities” inside Egypt.

Morsi faces another charge of “communication” that was referred to the criminal court by the Prosecutor General on 6 September 2014. Together with 9 other persons he is accused of “stealing national security secrets and leaking them to Qatar with which he had communicated.”