Egypt's former president Mohamed Morsi (Reuters)
A Cairo criminal court is set to announce on 23 April its final ruling in the so-called Qatari espionage trial of ex-president Mohamed Morsi and 10 other defendants.
Morsi, who was ousted in July 2013, faces charges of using his post to leak classified documents to Qatar through Al-Jazeera TV channel with the help of secretaries and Muslim Brotherhood figures.
Morsi and the head of his office, Ahmed Abdel-Ati, are charged with leaking secret information on general and military intelligence, the Armed Forces, its armaments and other state secrets.
The prosecution alleges that the two used their positions to pass the files from the presidential offices to Amin El-Serafy, a presidential secretary, who then passed them to his daughter, Karima, who gave them to agents to give to the Qataris.
The other defendants – who include Ahmed Afify, a documentary producer; Mohamed Kilany, a flight attendant; Ahmed Ismail, a teaching assistant; and Khaled Radwan and Asmaa El-Khatib, two journalists at pro-Brotherhood TV channels – are charged with turning over copies of the classified documents to two staffers of the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera and an unknown Qatari intelligence officer.
Three of the 10 defendants are being tried in absentia.
The espionage trial is the fourth against Morsi since his ouster.
Morsi has already been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in the "Ittihadiya case," a death sentence in the Wadi Natroun jailbreak case, and life in jail over leaks to foreign powers, including militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
All the sentences are currently subject to being overturned.
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