The defence lawyers acting for Mohamed Morsi filed an appeal on Saturday against the death sentence handed to the former president on charges relating to a 2011 prison break.

Lawyer Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud told Ahram Online that Morsi's defence team had provided the appeal court with all necessary legal papers in the Wadi Natroun jail break case, for which Morsi was sentenced to death in May, and in another case in which Morsi had received a life sentence.

On 16 May, a court issued a preliminary death sentence against Morsi and 105 other defendants in the case known as the "Wadi Natroun jailbreak case" in local media.

The prosecution charged Morsi and co-defendants with murder, attempted murder, looting prison weapons depots, setting fire to buildings, and releasing prisoners while escaping from the prison in January 2011.

A month later, the same court sentenced Morsi to life in prison on charges of spying for Hamas, part of a separate case. The court sentenced 16 others to death in the case, including Muslim Brotherhood leaders Khairat El-Shater and Mohamed El-Beltagy.

In the espionage case, the defence team cited 11 reasons in the appeal memorandum submitted to the court.

"The reasons cited in the memorandum are related to lack of evidence in both cases," Abdel-Maqsoud told Ahram Online.

He added that the verdicts in both cases were based on “lack of evidence” and that the trials of the former president, and those of other Islamist figures, are “politicised.”