Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mursi dies after court hearing

Former Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi, the first democratically elected head of state in Egypt’s modern history, died on Monday aged 67 after collapsing in a Cairo court while on trial on espionage charges, authorities said.

Mursi, a top figure in the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, had been in jail since being toppled by the military in 2013 after barely a year in power following mass protests against his rule.

The public prosecutor said he had collapsed in a defendants’ cage in the courtroom shortly after speaking, and had been pronounced dead in hospital at 4:50 p.m. (1450 GMT). It said initial checks had shown no signs of recent injury on his body.

The Muslim Brotherhood described Mursi’s death as a “full-fledged murder” and called for crowds to gather at his funeral in Egypt and outside Egyptian embassies around the world.

“Neither the shock of the news nor the haste in spreading information about the details of (Mursi’s) death will change the features of this full-fledged murder,” the Islamist group said in a statement on its website.