The court postponed the session to Monday to hear four more witnesses, including Heliopolis chief police detective. The court, during the Sunday session, heard the accounts of former Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin and Republican Guards commander Ahmed Ibrahim Fayed.
The trial of President Mohamed Morsy and 14 others, in the case known as the presidential palace violence, had been postponed until Sunday in order to hear testimony from former interior minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin and other key witnesses.
The secret hearing and the broadcasting ban remain in effect.
The court took in on Saturday more testimonies in confidence of prosecution witnesses.
The court had in its previous secret session heard the testimonies of General Mohamed Zaki, the commander of the Republican Guard, Hisham Abdel Ghani Abdel Aziz, police chief of the Republican Guard, Labib Radwan Ibrahim, head of the Republican Guard operations, Khaled Abdel Hamid Abdel Rahman, commander of the forces securing the president, and Mohamed Saber Abdel Aziz, a police officer of the Republican Guard.
The defendants are accused of committing crimes of murder and incitement to kill demonstrators in front of the Ittihadiya Presidential Palace in December 2012, against the backdrop of mass demonstrations objecting to the supplementary constitutional declaration that Morsy issued in November 2012 to immunize his decisions against judicial prosecution.
The declaration also dismissed Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud and immunized the Shura Council and the Constituent Assembly from challenging with the Supreme Constitutional Court or any other judicial body, which was considered an assault on the judiciary.
Investigators say that Morsy ordered Republican Guard Commander Mohamed Zaki and Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin several times to disperse the peaceful demonstrations but they declined in order to save the lives of the protesters, which prompted Assad al-Sheikha, Ahmed Abdel Aty and Ayman Abdel Rauf, the president’s aides, to call their supporters and disperse the demonstrations by force.
Meanwhile, the Cairo Court of Appeal is convening on Wednesday to resume the trial of Morsy and 35 other leaders and members of the Muslim Brotherhood accused of communicating with foreign bodies, disclosing national security secrets and coordinating with jihadi organizations inside and outside Egypt to carry out terrorist operations in Egyptian.
The same court is resuming the trial, as the request of defendants Mohamed al-Beltagy and Safwat Hegazy to replace the judge was turned down for lack of justification.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
