EGYPT’S first democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi has collapsed and died in court, state television has reported.
It said 67-year-old Mr Morsi fainted after a court session and died shortly afterwards.
The former President, a top figure for the Muslim Brotherhood, had been in jail since being toppled by the military in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
State television said he was in court for a hearing on charges of espionage eminating from suspected contacts with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Nile News TV said: “The body has been transferred to a hospital and necessary procedures are under way.”
Mr Morsi was serving a 20-year-sentence for a conviction arising from the killing of protesters during mass demonstrations in 2012.
He was also serving a life sentence for espionage in a case related to the Gulf state of Qatar.
Last year, a group of British MPs and lawyers issued a grave warning that Mr Morsi faced an early death because of the poor conditions in the jail in which he was being held.
The Detention Review Panel (DRP) had said the former President was “receiving inadequate medical care, particularly inadequate management of his diabetes, and inadequate management of his liver disease”.
The DRP added Mr Morsi was being held in the Tora prison in Cairo and had been in solitary confinement for more than three years.
Mr Morsi was the fifth President of Egypt but only served for a year from June 30, 2012 until July 3, 2013, when General General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed him from office.
But just three days before he was ousted, protests erupted across Egypt, with protesters calling for the President’s resignation.
He was given a 48-hour ultimatum by the military to meet their demands and resolve political differences, who warned they would intervene by “implementing their own road map” for the country.
He was then unseated on July 3 by a military coup council consisting of Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, and Coptic Pope Tawadros II.
The Muslim Brotherhood protested against the military coup, but the pro-Morsi protests were crushed in the Rabaa massacre in August 2013, when more than 800 people were killed.
Since being overthrown, prosecutors in Egypt has sought the death penalty for the crimes Mr Morsi had been charged with.
But the move was denounced by Amnesty International as “a charade based on null and void procedures.”
