Cairo: Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi died Monday at a Cairo courtroom where he was retried in an espionage case. The 67-year-old Islamist died of a heart attack, state media said.
Mursi collapsed inside the cage after he spoke for five minutes upon his request, Egypt's chief prosecutor Nabil Sadeq said.
He was pronounced dead at arrival in a hospital, according to the prosecutor's statement.
An initial examination of Mursi's body showed there were no recent injuries, the statement added.
The prosecutor ordered a panel of senior forensic officials to compile a report on the exact cause of Mursi's death before his burial.
The statement said that surveillance cameras inside the courtroom were ordered to be checked, and people who were with Mursi at the time of his death be questioned.
During his statement, Mursi looked angry and tired before dropping unconscious inside the cage, legal sources added.
He fainted shortly afterwards. Mursi was a diabetic.
He was on a retrial along with 23 members of his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group in a case related to spying with the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement during the chaos that followed a 2011 uprising against his predecessor Hosni Mubarak.
In mid-2013, Mursi was deposed by the army following enormous street protests against his one-year rule.
He has since been tried in several cases including spying for his staunch backer Qatar and orchestrating a mass prison break during Egypt's 2011 revolt.
