UN finds: Morsi's death ‘state-sanctioned arbitrary killing’
A panel of UN experts have found that the detention conditions of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi may have directly led to his death in June.
Morsi was Egypt's first democratically elected president. He was ousted in a military coup by current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2013. He'd been jailed for six years until his death in a Cairo court while on trial on espionage charges, which rights groups dismissed as trumped-up and politicized.
A statement by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday said the experts concluded that conditions Morsi endured "could amount to a state-sanctioned arbitrary killing."
They said he was in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, denied medical care, lost vision in one eye and suffered recurrent diabetic comas.
“Dr. Morsi was held in conditions that can only be described as brutal, particularly during his five-year detention in the Tora prison complex,” the experts wrote.
“Dr. Morsi’s death after enduring those conditions could amount to a state-sanctioned arbitrary killing."
The experts also warned that thousands more prisoners are "at severe risk" from "gross violations" in Egyptian prisons.
Senior members of Morsi's former government welcomed the investigation and called on the UN to extend its probe to include the "suspicious circumstances" surrounding the death of Morsi's son Abdullah in September.
Before he died, the 25-year-old Abdullah Morsi had been in touch with the UN to formally complain about his father’s death. He reportedly died of a heart attack on September 4, and was buried next to his father in Cairo.
“Abdullah died shortly after he privately gave crucial evidence about his father’s death to the United Nations," Yehia Hamed, a former minister under Morsi, said in the joint statement.
"I was in close contact with Abdullah Morsi and I am convinced that it was his very brave work with the United Nations that led to his death."
The UN experts also warned that thousands more prisoners in Egypt were enduring similar conditions, and their 'health and lives' may also be at severe risk.
The 67-year-old former president fainted during a court session on June 17 and died afterwards.
Last year, a report by a panel of UK legislators and attorneys had warned that the lack of medical treatment could result in Morsi's "premature death.”
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