Egypt detains son of jailed ex-president Morsi

A son of Egypt's jailed ex-president was reportedly taken into custody on Wednesday, with his family left in the dark about his whereabouts.
2 min read
10 October, 2018
Abdullah Morsi's family say they are unaware of his whereabouts [Anadolu]


Egyptian authorities on Wednesday detained the son of jailed former president Mohamed Morsi at his home in Cairo, his family have said.

The former president's son, Ahmed, confirmed to Anadolu that his brother Abdullah had been taken in by security services.

"We were taken by surprise this morning when unidentified people entered our home in the Sheikh Zayed district [of western Cairo] and detained my brother," Ahmed told the Turkish news agency.

He added that his brother's current whereabouts are unknown, with authorities yet to announce the arrest.

Egypt's military ousted president Morsi in 2013, paving the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to be outlawed and designated a terror organisation in December of that year. 

In the years since Morsi's ouster, Egypt's courts have sentenced hundreds of people to death or lengthy jail terms for opposition the military coup, including Morsi and several leaders of the Brotherhood movement.

Since 2014, Egypt has been led by former armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the military coup.

Sisi won re-election with 97 percent of the vote in March this year, against a single opponent widely seen as a token challenger.

Morsi was Egypt's first democratically elected president, with the 2013 coup ending the country's brief democratic phase.