The Egyptian prosecutor's office accuses the deposed president Mohamed Morsi of divulging state secrets to Iran's Revolutionary Guard as part of a conspiracy to destabilize Egypt, France Press reported today.
At the second hearing, the prosecutors specified the indictment against Morsi and his 35 accomplices, stating that they "supplied many national defense secrets to a foreign country and provided security reports to Iran's Revolutionary Guard."
The AFP agency indicates that it is not specified which "foreign country" it is.
According to the indictment, Morsi and his accomplices spied from 2005 to August 2013 for "the international organization Muslim Brotherhood and (Palestinian movement) Hamas, with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks in the country in order to spread chaos and destroy the state".
The French news agency said that during Morsi's one-year rule, cooperation between Cairo and Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that rules in the neighboring Gaza Strip, flourished.
Until the election for the Egyptian president, Morsi was the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and he was removed from power by the army on July 3, 2013, after massive street protests.
At today's hearing, Morsi was placed in a soundproof "glass cell" in the courtroom to avoid disrupting the proceedings.
This, however, did not stop the accused, among them the supreme religious teacher of the Brothers ("murshid") Muhammad Badije, his deputy and "gray eminence" Hejrat al-Shater and other Islamist leaders, who loudly rejected the accusations against them.
"It's not valid, it's not valid," they shouted when the judge asked them if they accepted the indictment.
15 defendants escaped arrest and are abroad.
This process is one of four launched against Morsi and his closest associates, one of the most serious charges being the murder and violence against protesters during the riots at the residence of the head of state in December 2012.
If proven guilty, Morsi could be sentenced to death.
Until the election for the Egyptian president, Morsi was the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and he was removed from power by the army on July 3, 2013, after massive street protests.
Morsi won the elections and was appointed head of state in the summer of 2012.
The main prosecutor's office made a decision to arrest him, and then his detention was extended several times because of a possible conspiracy with the Palestinian movement Hamas.
He is now in the Burj al-Arab remand prison in the suburbs of Alexandria.
If proven guilty, he could be sentenced to death.
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