Egypt court adjourns Morsi’s trial until 8 June

An Egyptian court adjourned until 8 June the trial of former President Mohamed Morsi and 28 other defendants in the case known in the media as the “prison break” case.

Morsi became the country’s first democratically-elected president after the 2011 popular uprising and was ousted in a military coup in 2013.

He and others are accused of orchestrating prison breaks and breaches of Egypt’s eastern border during the uprising that forced long-term dictator Hosni Mubarak from power in January 2011.

Last year, the Court of Cassation, the highest appeals court in Egypt cancelled a death sentence that had been handed down to Morsi, as well as those against his co-defendants, and ordered a retrial.

Since the 2013 coup, Egyptian authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on Morsi, his supporters and sympathizers, as well as on critics of the government. The former president found himself behind bars facing trial in a string of cases that observers consider to be political. Hundreds of others are either facing trial or have been subjected to extrajudicial detention.

READ: Egypt forcibly disappears baby from his home in Alexandria