P. Rafic: no shadow on Morsi's death. Fears of attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood

P. Rafic: no shadow on Morsi's death. Fears of attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood

The former leader died of a heart attack at the end of a hearing of the espionage trial. Erdogan accuses the "tyrants" of Cairo. The Egyptian priest excludes suspicious circumstances launched by Western governments and international NGOs. "Sorry" for the disappearance, but "had governed in a catastrophic manner" and was "the first to violate the Constitution".

Cairo (AsiaNews) - Mohamed Morsi "was a sick person" who in the past had had "a head tumor before being elected president" and was of "delicate" health. The stress deriving from the process "may have undermined his condition even more, but there are no other elements besides" the medical one, behind his death ". This is what he told AsiaNewsp. Rafic Greiche, president of the Media Committee of the Council of Churches of Egypt, commenting on the sudden death of the former president linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. "In these hours - he adds - I read news on TV and in Western media, especially the French ones, of death in doubtful circumstances or that he was killed, but it is not. In these years of imprisonment he had been hospitalized three or four times in the best hospitals, the State has done everything to ensure the best care ". 

Amid massive security measures this morning at dawn the former president, who died yesterday in Cairo following a cardiac arrest during a hearing in which he was accused of espionage, was buried in Nasr City, in eastern Cairo . Morsi had requested permission to be able to intervene in the courtroom during the trial; at the end of the hearing he fell slumped with a heart attack and never recovered.

Family members and a few other people were present at the funeral of the 67-year-old former leader. According to his son Ahmed told Reuters , the Egyptian authorities denied permission to hold public funerals in his hometown, fearing demonstrations. And in these hours the government leaders have declared the state of maximum alert and strengthened the security measures, in fear of attacks or street demonstrations. 

The Muslim brothers have already ridden the news of the death of their former leader in Egypt, talking about "murder in all respects" and inviting citizens to gather at the funeral. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, expressed condolences to the family. Words of support also from the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan who accused the "tyrants" of Cairo of having "pushed to death" Morsi "putting him in jail": Perplexities on the respect of the human rights of the ex leader were also raised by international NGOs and western governments. 

"Stress for the process - explains Fr. Rafic to AsiaNews - may have affected the state of health and already weak conditions, but it should not be said that he was killed because he was on trial in court. This is only a media reconstruction, far from the truth ". At the moment, the priest continues, "the streets are quiet and there have been no incidents or protests" to coincide with the funeral. President al-Sisi himself is abroad, in Belarus for an official visit "and did not want to return" confirming that the situation is under control. 

"The Egyptians - warns Fr. Rafic - they are tired of the Muslim Brotherhood: they talk about it abroad, in Qatar and Turkey, but here nobody wants their return ". Of course, he admits, "there is a danger that someone wants to launch attacks on churches, places of worship, police barracks or other sensitive places to fuel tension or revenge, but for us he was a figure belonging to the past". Morsi, the Catholic leader continues, was "a puppet in the hands of the brotherhood, and even for them up until yesterday nothing mattered. What matters to them is the community itself and the people are functional to the cause, so it is not inconceivable that death is exploited as an element of propaganda especially in the West ". 

On a human level, Fr. Rafic, "we are sorry for his death and we are close to his family, despite the total disagreement on the way he has governed the country for a year, and in a catastrophic way". "Many, especially in the West - he concludes - remember him as the first democratically elected president and launch accusations of violations of human rights, democracy. But he was the first to distort the Constitution in November 2012, with a decree that centralized power in his hands and in fact tore up the Charter and its dictates ". 

Morsi, the 'democratic' president who wanted to govern with sharia (SHEET)
Born in a village of El-Adwah, in the northern governorate of Sharqia, on 20 August 1951, Mohamed Morsi was the fifth president of the history of Egypt and the first to be elected following a popular vote. He studied engineering at the University of Cairo where he graduated in the 1970s, then moved to the United States to complete his doctorate. 

Exponent of the Freedom and Justice party (close to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most important political organizations in the world linked to Islam), he carried out research between 1982 and 1985 at the University of California, before returning to the country of origin and lead the engineering department of the University of Zagazig.

Meanwhile he started his political career within the Muslim Brotherhood, which at that time still operated in semi-clandestine conditions. A member of the Egyptian Parliament between 2000 and 2005 as an independent, he joined the political office of the movement. In subsequent elections he is not re-elected, losing his seat on the ballot. 

In those years, inside and outside the Parliament, Morsi proposes himself as a defender of the morality and customs of Islam, denouncing the government for allowing the circulation of magazines with covers of nudes and TV programs with "immoral" scenes. The competitions of Miss Egypt, which he believed were contrary to the "social norms, the sharia and the Constitution" were also targeted.

In April 2012, following the revolt deposed by former president Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood chose Morsi as a presidential candidate who will win by becoming the first Egyptian head of state to take office following voting. He gets 51% of preferences, against 48% of Ahmed Shafiq, an establishment candidate and Prime Minister under Mubarak. 

Morsi remains in office until 3 July 2013, when he is deposed following a military coup led by the current president al-Sisi. He wanted to build a "non-theocratic" country but to refer to Islamic law, while granting space to women in public life. 

A little over a year after the election, the growing economic difficulties and the opposition to the radical Islamic drift brought to the country lead the citizens (even Christians, who represent 10% of the population) exasperated and ask for the expulsion. He was deposed on 3 July 2013 with a military coup d'état supported by the lay opposition leader Mohamed el-Baradei, the great imam of al-Azhar al-Tayyib and the leader of the Coptic pope Church Tawadros II.

Morsi is placed under house arrest for crimes of instigation to violence and espionage. On January 29, a second proceeding begins on charges of escape from the prison of Wadi al-Natrun where he was detained during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. In May 2015 he was sentenced to death by the court of Cairo, but on November 14 of the year the sentence is subsequently canceled and the process declared to be redone. He died on June 17, 2019 from cardiac arrest, during a court hearing. He had type 1 diabetes.

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