What is the secret briefcase that Morsi talked about right before his death?

Moments before his death, deposed Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi, revealed the existence of a secret briefcase containing evidence of his innocence and stipulated that he would only talk about this briefcase in a confidential session in the presence of the man who led the coup against him, current president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

According to relatives of detainees who attended Morsi’s trial, his last words before his death in the cage on Monday evening were about a briefcase containing evidence that repudiates accusation of treason against him and shows the Egyptian people who betrayed them and who defended their rights.

According to human rights sources who participated in the previous sessions of Morsi’s trial, he had previously demanded to hold a secret meeting in the presence of Al-Sisi, former Defence Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and former Chief of the General Staff Sami Anan, to talk about serious information that threatens the Egyptian national security. However, the court bodies that were investigating these cases rejected the request of the late president for several times.

Leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood and others from the Freedom and Justice Party, who were close to President Morsi during his rule, revealed to Arabi21 that part of the information that the briefcase contains is related to Al-Sisi’s involvement in the killings of demonstrators during the revolution of 25 January 2011. Moreover, this information was as previously revealed by the report of the Commission on the Investigation of the events of the revolution that Morsi formed during his rule.

The leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that this Commission handed over a single copy of a report to Morsi, who in turn handed it over to the Revolutionary Prosecution, a unit he had formed to re-investigate cases related to the killing of demonstrators after the former President Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to hard labour in his trial.

READ: Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first, democratic president

The same sources added that the report prepared by the adviser Omar Marwan, the head of the Commission at the time, and the Minister of Parliamentary Councils in the government of Sherif Ismail during the rule of Al-Sisi, had disappeared. However, they knew that the reports proved that Al-Sisi was responsible for killing demonstrators by using sniper teams on the roofs of buildings close to Tahrir Square, and the roof of the Ramses Hilton Hotel overlooking the Abdel Moneim Riad Square, adjacent to Tahrir Square.

The sources pointed out that during the last days of President Morsi’s rule, there has been a clash between him and Defence Minister Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. This occurred after Morsi hinted at Al-Sisi’s failure to release seven recruits who had been kidnapped in the city of Rafah in Sinai, and the security services identified Al-Sisi’s refusal to order the army to support police forces in attacking that as the kidnappers’ hiding place.

According to the information obtained by Arabi21, Al-Sisi had refused to provide support to the police forces in breaking into Mount Helal.

The sources confirm that when Al-Sisi failed to avoid Morsi’s request, he argued that there is a peace treaty with Israel that does not allow Egyptian troops or military aircraft to enter the places where the kidnappers are hiding. After Morsi insisted that Al-Sisi implement his orders, the latter asked Morsi to issue an official speech and prepare a war plan and a military operations map to carry out the mission.

The sources explained that Al-Sisi had demanded that because he thought Morsi would not agree. Surprisingly and contrarily to Al-Sisi’s expectations, Morsi demanded that the order of war and the maps of operations be signed immediately. This had indeed happened, but the surprise was that the hostages were released several hours later without the arrest of the kidnappers.

The same sources added that this incident raised Morsi’s suspicions about Al-Sisi’s involvement in the killing of 16 Egyptian troops at the checkpoint on the Egyptian borders with occupied Palestine before the fast-breaking in Ramadan, on 5 August 2012. This incident led to the ousting of the Director of the Egyptian Intelligence Murad Muwafi, Defence Minister Tantawi, Chief of General Staff Anan, and several senior defence ministry officials, including the military police chief, as well as the security directors of northern and southern Sinai.

Former Egypt President Morsi dies in court – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]