Ousted president's children allege human rights violations over his continued detention and say they plan to sue coup leader
The family of the ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has branded the army chief who ordered his detention an international criminal, and announced plans to take legal action against him in the international courts.
"What is happening to President Morsi is a violation of his rights by all measures," Osama Morsi, the ex-president's oldest son, told a news conference, flanked by his brother Abdulla and sister Shaimaa. "Our father is held incommunicado which contravenes the most basic of human rights conventions."
Morsi has been detained since 3 July when the head of Egypt's armed forces, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, ordered his removal from power following days of mass protests against his year-long presidency.
Yesterday security forces fired teargas to disperse hundreds of supporters and opponents of Morsi who hurled stones at each other near Cairo's Tahrir Square. State television said one person had been killed and seven wounded.
Osama Morsi, a lawyer, said his family did not know where their father was, and described his imprisonment as an abduction. His sister said: "As the family of the president and citizen Mohamed Morsi, we hold the leader of the coup, Sisi, and his group accountable for our father's and our president's health and overall condition. We are in the process of taking legal action through international and local courts against the person of Sisi and those aiding him in the coup."
The Morsis' words stood in stark contrast to the adulation in which Sisi is held among large sections of the Egyptian public who are delighted at how he forced Morsi from office, and apparently willing to turn a blind eye to recent military malpractice. Sisi's picture can be seen on many shop fronts and walls across Cairo, and an army spokesman has been forced to deny that Sisi may one day seek the presidency.
Asked after the conference whether he held Sisi personally responsible for his father's treatment, Osama Morsi said he considered Sisi "an international criminal".
Mohamed al-Damatti, a leading Egyptian lawyer who attended the news conference in support of the family, said: "We are now faced with an unprecedented, dangerous and shocking situation: the personal predicament of Dr Mohamed Morsi, the legitimate, freely elected president … We are facing a crime: that of holding a person in communicado."
The deputy head of Egypt's doctors' syndicate, Gamal Abdel-Salam, said the military should grant medics access to Morsi, who has a history of diabetes and liver complications.
Meanwhile, the EU reiterated its call for Morsi to be released. "Egypt has to move rapidly to an inclusive, democratic transformation process, including by the holding of democratic elections in the shortest possible time," it said.
Morsi's release and restoration to the presidency is considered by his supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood as a prerequisite for their further engagement in the political process. Their stance has been derided by the military-backed interim government, who say there is no going back on recent events, and who this week are forging ahead with writing a new constitution.
Islamist members of the Shura council, the upper house of Egypt's parliament, gathered to debate on Monday, even though the Shura was disbanded by the interim government as one of its first deeds in office.
Prosecutors say Morsi is under investigation for inciting violence, spying and ruining the economy, but no specific charges have yet been announced.
To add to the intrigue, Egypt's main state newspaper, al-Ahram, claimed on Sunday that Morsi would be charged with collusion in a foreign plot involving the US ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson. According to al-Ahram, the plot – thwarted by the military on 3 July – would have led to Egypt being governed from a mosque in Cairo. Both judicial and military spokesmen denied the claims, leading to questions about how al-Ahram – considered a mouthpiece of the state – could have so mangled the official line.
After ousting Morsi, the army nominally handed over power to a civilian president, judge, Adly Mansour, who appointed a civilian prime minister who in turn appointed a largely technocratic cabinet that included a number of Mubarak-era ministers. But few observers doubt the army still wields considerable influence behind the scenes – a situation that some who called for Morsi's removal find problematic.
The army may be popular among many of those who wanted Morsi out. But others feel the army is potentially as big an impediment as Morsi to the democratic goals of the 2011 revolution that toppled Mubarak. At a memorial picnic last weekend for Gika Salah, an anti-Morsi activist killed in clashes last November, Salah's father reminded mourners that both Morsi and Egypt's security forces were not the answer to the country's problems.
Additional reporting by Marwa Awad