Cairo, Feb 22 (IANS) An Egyptian court Saturday postponed till Feb 24 the trial of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and 130 others for storming the Wady al-Natroun prison and killing police officers during the 2011 uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak.
Morsi and 21 other defendants were detained in the case, while the rest of the defendants were being tried in absentia, reported Xinhua citing the Egyptian state TV.
The defendants include members of the Muslim Brotherhood group and the Palestinian Hamas movement that ruled Gaza and the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah.
More than 20,000 prisoners escaped in 2011 and investigations revealed that contacts were made among the ousted president, Brotherhood leaders, and Hamas and Hezbollah members to spread chaos, storm prisons and train militants in Egypt.
Ousted by the military in July 2013, Morsi is facing other lawsuits over charges of espionage, inciting killing of protestors and insulting the judiciary.
Islamists have been staging regular protests condemning Morsi’s ouster as a “coup” and demanding his reinstatement.
The Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, was also blacklisted by the interim government in December 2013 as a “terrorist group”.