Trial of Morsi, 10 defendants over Qatar espionage adjourned to Sunday

Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday adjourned until Sunday the trial of former president Mohamed Morsi and 10 other Muslim Brotherhood members over charges of leaking classified documents on Egypt's national security and the Armed Forces to Qatar.

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

During today's session, the court interrogated Abdel Megid Salah, a member of the presidency secretariat since the era of former president Hosni Mubarak.

Salah said documents received from sovereign authorities and carry a degree of confidentiality were received only by staff of the office of Morsi's office director Ahmed Abdel Aatti.

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.

They converted the files to a soft version with the help of Khaled Hamdi (production director at MB Misr 25 satellite channel) and Ahmed Ismail (lecturer at Misr University for Science & Technology).

The National Security Agency arrested Mohamed Adel, Ahmed Ali, Khaled Hamdi, Ahmed Ismail and Karima el Serfi, who all confessed in detail about the crimes, it added.

Source: MENA