Cairo: Egyptian authorities have denied allegations by the Muslim Brotherhood that deposed president Mohammad Mursi has been poisoned in prison.
“These rumours are not true,” Maj Gen Hassan Al Sohaji, the Interior Minister’s assistant in charge of prisons, told the independent newspaper Al Youm Al Saba on Saturday. “There is full medical supervision on meals served to prisoners.”
A self-styled Brotherhood-led parliament based in Turkey claimed that Mursi had been poisoned in his prison in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria and called on the UN to send a team to “protect” him and investigate the alleged poisoning.
Meanwhile, a pro-Mursi Islamist alliance called on supporters to take to the streets to pressure the Egyptian government into releasing the former president.
Last week, an Egyptian court postponed until August 2 hearing an espionage case involving Mursi after he failed to show up. Authorities told the court that Mursi had suffered a drop in blood sugar levels and was kept in prison on medical recommendation.
Mursi, a senior leader in the now outlawed Brotherhood, was toppled by the army in 2013 following enormous street protests against his one-year-old rule.
Last month, he was sentenced to death on charges of orchestrating a big prison escape during the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak. Mursi was also sentenced to life after being convicted of conspiring with foreign organisations.
He is being tried in two separate cases on charges of spying for Qatar, a staunch Brotherhood ally, and insulting the judiciary.
A relentless security crackdown on the Brotherhood has diminished the 87-year-old group’s ability for street mobilisation.
