Trial of Morsi, 10 others delayed until Thursday

Cairo Criminal Court postponed on Tuesday the trial of former president Mohamed Morsi along with 10 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group on charges of passing national security documents to Qatar to Thursday.

Morsi and the 10 defendants are accused of leaking classified documents to the Qatari intelligence and officials at the Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel upon orders from the international organization of the MB.

The court decision was made to continue examining exhibits seized with the defendants.

According to the investigations, the leaked documents include sensitive information about the Egyptian Armed Forces, their stationing 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, not to mention Defense Ministry secrets.

Former Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem, who now is Al-Jazeera network chairman, had attended a meeting in December 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 and a half million dollars, the State Higher Security Prosecution had said.

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

The international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood had 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 his daughter's residence, 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.

The prosecution ordered the arrest of the remaining suspects: Asmaa el Khatib, Alaa Omar and Ibrahim Helal.