Morsi trial of espionage put off to Monday

The Cairo Criminal Court decided on Sunday to put off the trial of former president Mohamed Morsi and 10 other Muslim Brotherhood cadres in an espionage case with Qatar to Monday's hearing.

Morsi and his co-defendants are accused of leaking classified information to the Qatari Intelligence and the Doha-based Aljazeera TV news channel about the national security and the Armed Forces with the aim of harming Egypt's army and national interests.

Among the defendants are the former head of Morsi's office, Ahmed Abdel Aati, and secretary Ameen el Serafi, along with figures from Aljazeera news network.

The classified documents included information on military positions and armament, as well as additional information on the country's policies.

The decision was made to interrogate witnesses who were mentioned in a report by a technical panel tasked with examining the case documents.

According to investigations, the leaked documents included classified information about the Egyptian Armed Forces, their locations and the nature of arming, as well as reports issued by the general and military intelligence agencies, the National Security Agency and the Administrative Control Authority.

Former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassem, who is now chairman of Al Jazeera network, had attended a meeting in a Doha hotel (Sheraton) with a senior officer of the Qatari intelligence service, Alaa Seblan (a Jordanian correspondent working for Al Jazeera in Cairo) and head of Al Jazeera's news sector Ibrahim Helal, during which they reached an agreement to deliver the confidential documents in return for one million dollars, the State Higher Security Prosecution said.

The plan was to deliver the information to the Qatari intelligence and be aired on Al Jazeera screens to harm Egyptian national interests, the prosecution added.

With public anger roaring against Morsi before the June 30 revolution, the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood instructed Morsi, his office director Ahmed Abdel Aati and special secretary Amin el Serfi, to send over the confidential files to the Qatari side, it said.

Morsi's secretary, Serfi, kept the classified files at the house of his daughter, Karima, who handed them over to Asmaa el Khatib (working for MB-run Rasd online news network), who in turn delivered them to Ahmed Ali (a documentary producer) and the Jordanian Seblan.

Source: MENA