Egypt's First Democratically-Elected President, Mohamed Morsi, Has Been Laid to Rest

Yesterday, former President Mohamed Morsi suffered a fatal heart attack in a Cairo court while he was on trial for espionage charges. Morsi was the first head-of-state to be democratically elected in Egypt's modern history following President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. However, he was eventually ousted by the military in 2013 after continuous protests calling for him to step down.

Whilst many are not particularly aggrieved by the death of Morsi following his involvement in the killings of protesters in 2012, others have accused Egyptian authorities and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of his death.

Morsi, who was facing six more trials and serving a 20-year sentence, was reportedly denied medical care and kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day—torture, under UN guidelines. Morsi's history of diabetes, kidney and liver disease coupled with the poor conditions of prison, are said to have brought about what the Independent Detention Review Panel predicted would be a "premature death". The panel added that, "The denial of basic medical treatment to which he is entitled could lead to his premature death...The whole overseeing chain of command up to the current president would have responsibility for this."

In the wake of Morsi's death, there have been renewed calls to investigate Egypt's treatment of political detainees.

The now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest political Islamist group in the Arab world and the organisation to which Morsi belonged, referred to his death as a "full-fledged murder". Morsi was reportedly buried next to other senior figures of the Muslim Brotherhood according to a statement released by his son, Abdullah Mohamed Morsi, on social media.