Egypt government has accused the United Nations of trying to “politicise” the death of the country’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi by calling for an “independent inquiry”.
Egypt foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said, “I strongly condemned the death of former President and it was a deliberate attempt to politicise a case of natural death”.
Morsi, ousted by the military in 2013 after one year in office, collapsed in a courtroom while facing a trial on Tuesday.
According to a report in AFP, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said, “Any sudden death in custody must be followed by a prompt, impartial, thorough and transparent investigation carried out by an independent body to clarify the cause of death”.
“Concerns have been raised regarding the conditions of Mr Morsi’s detention, including access to adequate medical care, as well as sufficient access to his lawyers and family,” Colville added.
He further said that “the investigation must encompass all aspects of the authorities treatment of Mr Morsi to examine whether the conditions of his detention had an impact on his death.”
Morsi, 67, had been in custody since his removal after mass protests over his membership in now-banned Islamist movement ‘Muslim Brotherhood’.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood has said that the death was a “full-fledged murder” and called for crowds to gather at the funeral.