A News24 report said that the jailbreak trial of former Islamist president Mohammed Morsi has been postponed by an Egyptian court on Monday. The postponement of the trial was reportedly due to the defense lawyer's motion to recuse the judges from the case, the report said. A recuse is a legal challenge against a judge, prosecutor or a juror about his non-qualification to perform his legal duties in a case. News24 said that the trial on Monday was part of the three cases lodged against Morsi and the efforts of the Egyptian government to crack down his Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Presiding judge Shaaban el-Shamy told the court prior to ending the session, "The court decided to stop looking into the case until a decision is taken on the recuse request."
Morsi and 130 others, which include Palestinian and Lebanese militants, stand on trial for organizing jailbreaks and attacks in police stations during the revolt against Hosni Mubarak in 2011. During the hearing on Monday, some of the lawyer's defendants expressed their desire for a new set of judges over a specially-designed soundproof dock built to stop them from interrupting court proceedings, News24 said.
One of the defense lawyers, Khaled Badawi, said that the recuse was spurred by the alleged recording of private conversations between lawyers and their clients. An Egyptian newspaper earlier had released a discussion believed to have been of Morsie and lawyer Selim al-Awa. Badawi also said that Morsi's camp has also filed a recuse for his trial regarding allegations of him leaking state secrets to the Revolutionary Guards of Iran.
News24 has said that the violence that happened during the anti-Mubarak uprising has been largely credited to Morsi and the Brotherhood. Around 850 individuals have reportedly died during the 18-day skirmish. Majority of the people who died were slain outside of the police stations.
